The Minot State Beavers scored the first nine points and never trailed on their way to a 72-61 win over the University of Minnesota Crookston Men’s Basketball team in a Northern Sun Conference game played at Gary Senske Court at Lysaker Gym on Friday.
1st Half
Minot State scored the first nine points before building a 28-6 lead with 8:37 to go in the first half. Golden Eagles Coach Dan Weisse noted several factors that contributed to the slow start, “We tweaked something on offense, and obviously, I don’t like it. We’re going to change it back tomorrow. Part of it is I thought we had a couple of missed looks early and then forced some stuff. We can talk X’s and O’s, but the bottom line was today was more about they had more energy and were more tough than use. We have to find a way to play with energy and toughness because if we don’t we’re going to repeat the same outcome tomorrow. The plan is to have some energy and toughness but we can’t talk about it, we have to execute it.” The Golden Eagles finished the half a bit stronger scoring 19 of the final 26 points and trailed 35-27 at the half.
2nd Half
The Golden Eagles continued to chip at the Minot State lead in the second half closing to within five when Brian Sitzmann hit a pair of free throws to make it 54-49 with 8:51 to play. But the Golden Eagles could draw no closer Minot went on a 6-0 run to push the lead back to 60-49 with 7:43 to play. “We set the tone for them,” said Weisse. “The start of the second half we outscored them the first five minutes by one. We had many opportunities to get that lead to three or so, but we miss a layup or make a wrong read and they come down and get a three. Give Minot credit, they were the tougher team tonight. That’s disappointing on our end because we preach toughness and energy. But, clearly, they had more energy than we did tonight. We have to get that fixed.” With 6:06 to play Sam Ohlrich hit a layup to make it 62-53 in favor of the Beavers and Minot went on a 10-0 run over the next 3:46 to put the game away. The Golden Eagles shot just 36 percent from the field while Minot State shot 50 percent.
The Beavers improve to 3-4 on the year. The Golden Eagles fall to 1-6 and will host Minot State again on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. in a game that can be heard on KROX beginning with the RiverView Health pregame show at 1:00 p.m.
| 1 | 2 | Score | |
| Minot State | 35 | 37 | 72 |
| UMC | 27 | 34 | 61 |
| UMC | Points | Rebounds | Assist/Steal |
| Ethan Channel | 19 | 5 | 1/0 |
| Ibu Jassey Demba | 10 | 5 | 2/0 – 1 block |
| Brian Sitzmann | 10 | 4 | 2/1 – 1 block |
| Leonard Dixon | 7 | 2 | 0/1 |
| Josh Dilling | 6 | 3 | 2/0 |
| Quintin Winterfeldt | 6 | 1 | 0/0 – 1 block |
| Georges Darwiche | 3 | 1 | 1/0 |
| George Blaj-Voinescu | 0 | 1 | 0/0 |
| Morgan Carter | 0 | 2 | 0/0 |
