BOX SCORE
ST. CLOUD, Minn. -
Derrick De Zeeuw's put back as time expired erased an 87-87 tie and lifted Augustana past St. Cloud State 89-87 Saturday night in Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference basketball in St. Cloud, Minn.
Augustana moves to 14-5 (11-4 NSIC), while SCSU drops to 11-8 (10-5 NSIC).
The win was the Vikings' eighth straight.
With the game locked at 87-87, Augustana's
Cody Schilling threw up what would have been the game-winning basket with one second left, but his attempt failed to draw rim--allowing De Zeeuw to snag the offensive board and sink the follow with 0.1 seconds remaining.
De Zeeuw finished with a career-high 21 points on 9 of 10 shooting from the floor. He also added nine rebounds. The junior also hit two free throws with 41 seconds left to give the Vikings a three-point lead.
Leif Nomeland had 20 points and grabbed nine rebounds; he also hit five 3-pointers.
Cody Schilling added 16 points and six assists, while
Trevor Hass drilled three 3-pointers and finished with 11 points.
The Vikings rallied from a 13-point second-half deficit.
Taylor Witt had a game-high 32 points for SCSU, which defeated Augustana 76-74 on Jan. 3 in Sioux Falls, S.D.
The Vikings trailed 42-36 at intermission. The two teams combined for 11 3-pointers in the first half.
SCSU owned a double-figure lead--13 points--five minutes into the second half. But that would be the largest advantage the Huskies would have on the evening.
With just less than 12 minutes left, the Vikings orchestrated a run that ended up being the game changer. Sparked by an offensive board and second-chance bucket by De Zeeuw, Augustana went on an 11-2 run and eventually tied the game at 62-62 with 9:28 left.
The Vikings went on to lead by five points on two occasions before the Huskies got a pair of free throws from Witt at the 2:47 mark to knot the even the contest at 79-79.
Augustana led by three points with a little more than minute left. But, despite a pair of free throws from De Zeuuw, six points from Witt allowed the Huskies to tie the game again--this time at 87-87--with 12 seconds remaining.
Following Witt's bucket to knot the game, the Vikings went the length of the court, where Schilling's off-balance shot attempt with one second left found the hands of De Zeeuw for the game-winning put back.
The Vikings shot 51.5 percent from the field and committed just nine turnovers in the win. Augustana shot a season-low 55.0 percent (11 of 20) from the free-throw line.
SCSU shot 56.9 percent and also had just nine turnovers.
The current eight-game winning streak the Vikings are on is comprised of all NSIC games. It's the longest conference-winning streak since the 1933-34 season when Augustana won 10 straight in the South Dakota Intercollegiate Conference. The Vikings also put together an eight-game winning streak (not all conference games) last season.
Augustana returns to the Elmen Center next weekend, hosting Minnesota State and Southwest Minnesota State.
