Box Score

ST. CLOUD, MINN. – Southwest Minnesota State used the strong inside presence of Nick Dale and Taylor Huseby to earn a huge 88-68 Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference road victory over St. Cloud on Friday night. State 

Dale scored a career-high 18 points on 7 of 9 shooting in just 15 minutes, while Huseby set a career-high with 22 points in 23 minutes to help lead the Mustangs to the road victory.  SMSU is now a combined 8-3 in road and neutral site games this season.  The loss was the first of the season for SCSU at home in eight games.  

The victory was SMSU's first regular season victory over SCSU in St. Cloud since the 1982-83 season.  Southwest Minnesota State did beat St. Cloud State in 2001 in the NCAA regional championship game in St. Cloud.

SMSU finished tonight's game shooting 52.5 percent from the field (31 of 59).  It was the highest shooting percentage for SMSU since Dec. 3 versus Northwester.

SMSU improves to 12-5 overall, 5-3 NSIC, while SCSU drops its third in a row and is 10-5 overall, 5-3 NSIC.

The Mustangs started out the game red-hot from the field connecting on nine of their first 16 shots from the field to build a 23-10 lead with 12:41 on the clock on back-to-back three pointers by Andy Beilke and Jon DeRock.

St. Cloud State wouldn't go away and slowly chipped away at the SMSU lead and pulled to within 31-30 with just over five minutes remaining the half.  The Mustangs though had their own run in store and finished the half on an 11-2 run to take a 42-32 halftime lead.

SMSU finished the opening half shooting 44.1 percent from the field including 4 of 9 form three-point range.  The Mustang defense forced the Huskies into 11 first half turnover leading to 17 points for SMSU.

Kevin Andrews led the Mustangs with 11 first half points, while Beilke came off the bench to add eight points.

SCSU opened the second half with a field goal to cut the lead to 42-34, but SMSU stormed back with six straight points by Taylor Huseby to take its largest lead of the night at 48-34 with 17 minutes remaining.  SMSU then pushed the lead to 55-38 on a three-pointer by Andrew Peschong with 13:57 left in the game and continued to pour it on over the two and a half minutes pushing the lead to 61-39 with 11:26 on the clock on a lay-up by Kevin Andrews.

SMSU was never threatened again and cruised to the 20-point victory.

Huseby also added a team-high seven rebounds, while Ross DeMasi added five rebounds.  SMSU committed just nine turnovers and forced SCSU into 15 turnovers.

SMSU will continue its weekend road trip with a 6 p.m. contest at Concordia University in St. Paul tomorrow night.