Friday, December 5, 2008
Northern State 65 Wayne State 63
Northern State held off a second-half rally by Wayne State College, edging the Wildcats 65-63 in the Northern Sun Conference men's basketball opener for both teams played Friday evening in Aberdeen, South Dakota. The Wolves, 7-0 overall and 1-0 in the NSIC, have won 15 of the last 16 meetings vs. Wayne State dating back to 2001 while Wayne State falls to 3-4 overall and 0-1 in league play. Northern State coach Don Meyer, a Wayne native, picked up his 898th career win and is now just four wins shy of tying Bobby Knight's 902 wins on the NCAA all-time wins list.
Northern State led nearly the entire first half with the exception of one tie (8-8) and one lead by Wayne State, which came at 14-13 with 9:50 in the half following a Jonathon Thomas jumper. The Wolves led 37-29 at the intermission and took their biggest lead of the game at 11 points, 46-35 with 17:16 to play on a Mitch Boeck three pointer. But Wayne State slowly chipped away at the Northern State lead and got as close as one point at 63-62 with 1:48 to play after a jumper by Brian Metz.
Following a Northern State miss, WSC had a chance to take the lead but the 'Cats turned the ball over to the Wolves with 1:11 to go. Northern State's Kevin Ratzsch then made a desperation 15-foot jumper as the shot clock expired to put the Wolves in front 65-62 with 35 seconds to play. WSC had to foul Northern State's Derek Hoellein, who missed the front end of the one and one with 11 seconds left, but Wayne State's Brent Jackman missed a three pointer with four seconds left that was rebounded by redshirt freshman Marcus Messersmith, who was fouled with two-tenths of a second left. The Winside native made the first free throw, then missed the second on purpose but the ball was touched by Northern State and the final two-tenths ran off the clock as the host Wolves escaped with the win.
Junior center Brian Metz led Wayne State in scoring with 14 points followed by reserve guard Elijah Miller, who poured in a career-high 12 points off the bench. Jonathon Thomas added 11 points and a game-high nine boards for WSC. The Wildcats shot 24 of 50 from the field for 48 percent and 6 of 15 from the three point line. WSC was just 9 of 17 at the free throw stripe.
For Northern State, Kevin Ratzsch recorded 20 points and Mitch Boeck accounted for 19. The Wolves made 25 of 56 shots for 44.6 percent and 8 of 20 from the three point arch. NSU hit 7 of 11 charity tosses in the win.
Wayne State controlled the boards over Northern State 37-26 thanks to nine caroms by Thomas and six from Metz to lead the Wildcats. Northern State's top rebounder was Ratzsch with eight. The Wildcats did have 17 turnovers to just nine for the Wolves.
Wayne State will be in action again Saturday evening facing the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota in an 8:00 p.m. Northern Sun Conference contest.
