Box Score
The Augustana men’s basketball team could not keep the St. Cloud State Huskies off the offensive boards, as the Vikings dropped its Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference first round matchup 91-84 Wednesday night in front of 1,548 at Halenbeck Hall in St. Cloud, Minn.
After dropping its second game this season to St. Cloud State, Augustana drops to 19-9 overall, while finishing the season 13-7 in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference, while the Huskies moved on to the semifinals with a 20-8 overall record, while going 14-6 in the NSIC.
It was a game of scoring runs in the first half, as the Vikings jumped out to an 11-3 run in the first 3:26, as
Cody Schilling put in a quick 7 points to spark Augustana.
St. Cloud answered back with a 9-0 run of its own to take its first lead at 12-11 with 12:49 left in the half and continued to put in baskets at a dizzying pace to go up 22-13 with 9:47 remaining.
The Vikings then put together an 11-2 run to tie the game at 24-24 after a Schilling made 3-pointer at the 8:12 mark, but the Huskies out scored the Vikings 14-0 in second-chance points on 11 offensive rebounds in the half to take a 41-37 lead into halftime.
After trailing by just four points coming out of halftime, St. Cloud grabbed jumped on Augie to take its largest lead of the game at 12, as the Huskies led 58-46 just over 7 minutes into the second half.
Then,
David Foster, who took just 1 shot in the first half, scored 8 quick points to get to bring the game to 65-60 in favor of St. Cloud with 8:37 to go in the game.
But that was as close as the Vikings got, as St. Cloud continued to use second-chance points and offensive rebounds to keep the Vikings at bay.
Augustana shot 51 percent from the field on 27-53 shooting on the night, while going a stellar 24-of-26 from the free throw line. St. Cloud State shot 48 percent on 32-67 shooting from the field and made 19-of-23 from the charity stripe.
The Vikings gave up 20 second-chance points, 36 bench points and gave up 16 offensive rebounds on the night, while producing 3 second-chance points, 14 bench points and 8 offensive rebounds
Marques Blank led all Augie scorers with 20 points, while going 6-6 from the free throw line and Schilling scored 19 points on 5-of-8 shooting, while Foster put in 10 points on 4-of-7 shooting.
Eric Krogman scored 8 points and grabbed a game-high 11 rebounds and
Lee Stephens scored13 points and grabbed 4 rebounds.
Brett Putz scored a career-high 20 points for the Huskies, while going 4-of-6 from the 3-point line and Matt Schneck recorded a double-double with16 points, while grabbing 10 rebounds.
The Huskies move on to the second round of the NSIC tournament to take on the winner of No. 2 Winona State versus No. 7 Concordia-St. Paul.
The top 8 teams in region advance to the Central Regional Championships on March 13-17 and the Vikings are currently ranked No. 9 in the region. The men's regional championships brackets will be announced following the 9 p.m. women's regional on Sunday.