Jan. 20, 2001

Senior post Ben Dahl (Cottonwood, Minn.) led a balanced and lethal Northern State offense Saturday night in the Wolves' 101-75 win over Concordia-St. Paul. The Wolves improved their overall and conference mark to .500 at 8-8 and 4-4 with the win.

Dahl scored a career-high 25 points on 9-of-11 shooting and for the second straight night was one of six Wolves to post double-digits in points. Sophomore sharpshooter Nick Schroeder (Plymouth, Minn.) was next on the scoring list with 16 points, which included a perfect 4-of-4 shooting from 3-point range. Junior guard Drew Gruver (Scott City, Kan.) chipped in with 14 points, five rebounds and five assists, while sophomore forward Sundance Wicks (Gillette, Wyo.) scored 12 points and led the team with eight assists. Rounding out NSU's double-digit performers were freshman guard Steve Smiley (Arvada, Colo.) with 11 points and junior post Brad Hansen (Tea) with 10. Dahl also led the Wolves with six rebounds on the night. C-SP (6-10, 3-6 NSIC) was led by Josh Delich's 18 points and six rebounds.

NSU opened a 51-35 halftime lead and never let the Golden Bears back in the game in the second stanza. On the night, NSU shot a scintillating 64 percent, which included an unheard of of 77 percent (10-of-13) from 3-point range. But through all that sharpshooting, the highlight of the night no doubt came on NSU's 100th point, when crowd favorite Jake Phillips (senior forward, Manchester, Iowa) flushed one home on a pass from sophomore forward Ben Rops (Lennox) to usher his team to the century mark.

NSU's biggest opportunity to make some noise during the conference regular season comes next week as the toughest road trip of the season awaits. The Wolves will travel to conference leader Southwest State and defending league champion Wayne State next weekend.