Huskies stop Bulldogs

NSO – NEWS RELEASE

After a dominating first half, the University of Minnesota Duluth saw St. Cloud State University get hot in the second half and come from behind to knock off UMD 69-66 in both teams’ Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference opener at Hallenbeck Hall in St. Cloud on Saturday.

UMD (3-4, 0-1 NSIC) drops its conference opener but won’t need to wait long for revenge as SCSU (3-2, 1-0 NSIC) will travel to Duluth in just three short weeks on Dec. 20 before the teams close out the season’s first half.

TOP SCORERS
• Senior center Brett Ervin knocked down 20 points to lead all scorers on 8-of-15 shooting. Junior guards Taylor Lavery (14) and Pierre Newton (13), and senior Reece Zoelle (10) also hit double digits for the Bulldogs. Newton led the way with seven rebounds, all on the defensive end, as well as four assists for UMD.
• Kevin Levandoski led St. Cloud with 17 points, while Scott Stone scored 13 for SCSU. Eight Huskies scored at least four points. Senior center James Fort had seven rebounds before fouling out for St. Cloud.

UMD got its scoring stroke back in the first half as the Bulldogs shot 62.5 percent before the break, taking a 10-point lead to the locker room. Zoelle and Lavery each hit a pair of threes, and Newton added another as UMD went 5-of-9 from beyond the arc in the opening 20 minutes. Conversely, St. Cloud shot just 35.7 percent, and the Bulldogs hauled in 16 of 18 rebounds on their defensive end in the first frame. The game had a pair of ties and six lead changes in the early going, but the hot-shooting by the Bulldogs helped them build up a 38-28 lead.

The Huskies came out of the break firing back, trimming the lead to just two at 38-36, but an Ervin three-pointer, and a steal by Pineda leading to a Lavery lay-up put the Bulldogs back up seven.  Senior center James Fort utilized his size for the Huskies, knocking back a huge block and laying in a dunk for SCSU as the Bulldogs held a 45-40 lead into the first media timeout of the half. The Huskies continued to heat up as UMD cooled off and took their first lead in over 25 minutes of play at 51-50 with 9:26 to go.

The teams traded three-pointers down the stretch with the Huskies maintaining its slight edge with a pair by Stone while Lavery and Ervin both scored from distance for UMD. Ervin’s turn-around jumper with 3:40 to go gave the Bulldogs the lead back at 62-61 as St. Cloud’s Fort slid to the ground below the basket, before fouling out on the next UMD possession. After a jumper by Poydras gave the Huskies back the lead with 3:14 to go, the teams traded scoreless posessions with St. Cloud taking a three-point lead with a minute to go. An Ervin scored cut the lead to one, but the Huskies were able to make their free throws in the closing seconds and hold on to knock off UMD in come-from-behind fashion.

“We played well enough to win, you have to try really hard to shoot 53 percent from the field and lose. We gave them 14 extra chances to shoot the ball. We had 18 turnovers, they had 12 offensive rebounds in the second half. Only shooting 50 percent from the free throw line is uncharacteristic of us. In a very close game, you have to get every point you can,” said head coach Matt Bowen after the game. “I’d like to think we’re moving in the right direction. We’ve had a loss by two, loss by three, and a loss by three. We found a way to give three of these last four away – no disrespect to the teams we’ve faced – but we need to find a way to manufacture some wins.”

UMD shot 44.0 percent in the second half, 11-of-25, while St. Cloud made good on nearly half its shots – 48.6 percent, making good on nine Bulldog turnovers in the second half.