Wayne State 73 Northern State 58
Wayne State College led from start to finish in notching an impressive 73-58 Northern Sun Conference men's basketball road win at Northern State Friday evening in Wachs Arena at Aberdeen, South Dakota. With the win, the Wildcats move into a three-way tie with Northern State and Southwest Minnesota State for seventh place in the NSIC at 8-9 in league play while moving to 11-13 overall. Northern State saw its four-game win streak snapped, falling to 12-12 overall and 8-9 in the league.
The Wildcats jumped out to an early 6-0 lead on the Wolves and Northern State never got closer than four points as WSC held a double digit lead for a good share of the first half and took a 35-26 lead into the locker room at halftime.
The second half saw Northern State close within seven at 37-30 with 17:59 remaining following a jumper by Mitch Boeck. But WSC came right back and built the lead back to 13 points at 48-35 on a Brian Metz layup. The Wolves were able to get within eight points at 53-45 with 9:31 to play on a Boeck jumper. Then WSC scored the next five points to push the lead back up to 13 points and the 'Cats held a double digit advantage the rest of the way as Wayne State pulled away late for the 73-58 road win.
Senior forward Brett Spiker led a balanced scoring attack for Wayne State with 17 points and 12 rebounds for his 11th double-double of the season. Freshman guard Amry Shelby added 17 points followed by Jason Jensen with 15 points and Brian Metz with 11.
Wayne State shot a sizzling 57.1 percent from the field, making 28 of 49 shots. The 'Cats were 5 of 13 behind the three point line and 12 of 18 at the free throw stripe.
For Northern State, Mitch Boeck was the lone double figure scorer with a game high 29 points, making 11 of 26 shots from the field. The Wolves hit just 37.7 percent from the field on 20 of 53 and made just 3 of 20 from the three point line while canning 15 of 20 free throws.
Wayne State dominated the rebounding battle by a count of 35-20 thanks to 12 boards from Spiker and six by Jensen while Northern's top rebounder was Collin Pryor with six.
Wayne State will be on the road again Saturday night traveling to Bismarck, North Dakota to face the University of Mary in a Northern Sun Conference game starting at 8:00 p.m.
