Jan. 26, 2001

Northern State gave the North Central Region's fourth-ranked team and NCAA II's 21st-ranked team all it wanted on its own homecourt, but came up short 72-85 Friday night at Southwest State in Marshall, Minn.

The game was much closer than the score indicated, giving SSU's raucous "Hawaiian Night" crowd of 3,487 people a great game and adding another chapter to what is one of the great rivalries in NCAA II basketball.

The Wolves came out with fire in their bellies and got the best of Southwest in the first half, going into the locker rooms with a 35-31 lead. Carrying that momentum into the second stanza, NSU built its lead to as many as seven points midway through the second half. SSU (16-4, 4-5 NSIC) came back, mostly on the back of shooting guard Jacob Fahl, who went off for a career-high 35 points on 11-of-16 shooting.

NSU (8-9, 4-5 NSIC) countered inside with the inspired play of senior center Ben Dahl (Cottonwood, Minn.) who ended the night with 20 points on 7-of-10 shooting. The Mustangs took the lead back for good on a 3-pointer from senior point guard Marques Pena with six minutes remaining. For the next four minutes, SSU dominated play and built an 11-point lead with two minutes remaining. NSU's then put together a 8-1 run in the next minute to cut the lead to four, but it was too little, too late. SSU iced the game on free throws to bloat the final tally to 13 points.

Senior point guard Roland Williams (Ft. Worth, Texas) ended with 14 points, while sophomore forward Sundance Wicks (Gillette, Wyo.) rounded out NSU's double-digit scorers with 10 points to go with a team-high seven rebounds. After the disappointing loss, NSU had to board the bus for a red-eye journey to Wayne, Neb. The travel, added to the teams waiting to play you when you get there, make the Southwest-Wayne road trip by far the toughest in the NSIC. The Wayne State men are the defending NSIC co-champions.