Box Score

MARSHALL, Minn. - The No. 14 Southwest Minnesota State men's basketball team emerged as the outright Northern Sun Intercollegiate Sun champions with a 66-51 victory over Northern State Saturday night in Marshall in front of a packed R/A Facility.  

The championship is SMSU's second in the 42-year history of men's basketball at the school.

SMSU, the No. 1 ranked team in the NCAA Central Region, never trailed in the game, and won for the 15th straight time.  SMSU improves to 25-5 overall and finished the NSIC season at 17-3, two games ahead of second place Winona State.  Northern State, ranked No. 8 in the latest regional rankings, lost for the fourth straight time and finishes the regular season 18-9 overall, 11-9 NSIC.

The two teams will meet again in four days as SMSU will be the No. 1 seed in the upcoming NSIC/Sanford Health Basketball Tournament starting on Wednesday, March 4, and will face No. 8 seed Northern State at 7 p.m.

Ryan Krome led SMSU with a game-high 13 points and was the only Mustang in double figures.  Andy Beilke, Kevin Andrews, Taylor Huseby and Nick Dale all added eight points apiece to lead a balanced scoring attack.  Ross DeMasi grabbed a team-high 10 rebounds, recording his 12th double-figure rebounding game of the season.

The Mustangs jumped to a 9-2 lead in the game's first four minutes and pushed the lead to double digits late in the half before taking a 34-25 halftime lead.  SMSU shot just 33.3 percent in the first half but forced 11 NSU turnovers, which led to 18 points for SMSU.

SMSU scored the first two points of the second half on a field goal by Andy Beilke to push the lead back to double digits and never looked back in snapping a four-game losing streak to the Wolves.  SMSU held a 39-29 lead with 16:47 left in the game, before running off off seven straight points over the next two minutes to push the lead to 46-29 with 14:32 remaining.  

Mitch Boech led NSU with 10 points.  Kevin Ratzsch, who lead the Wolves averaging 21.8 points and 7.4 rebounds per game, was held to just nine points and four rebounds.