|
Huskies fill scheduling void with a 'W'
By Ben Birnell
With an open date on their schedule after various teams left the NCC conference, the SCSU men's basketball team needed a team to play for various reasons and to break up back-to-back games against Minnesota State University- Mankato. In stepped Crossroads College to fill those voids and break up the quirk in the schedule.
A rare Tuesday night found both teams in action and both with different objectives going in.
"We have a college of 140 students, so going against (SCSU), I was just looking for our guys to work hard and not give up," Crossroads coach Mike Golembiesky said.
SCSU is in the middle of their North Central Conference season, but they needed one more game for postseason eligibility. They found an opponent in the small four-year bible school out of Rochester.
The Huskies found themselves with a two-game winning streak going into this weekend's game against Minnesota State University-Mankato Mavericks, downing the visiting Crossroads Knights 88-74 in a non-conference win at Halenbeck Hall.
The Huskies took advantage of the vastly undersized Crossroads team, winning the rebounding battle 45-29, scoring 24 second-chance points and outscoring the Knights 50-28 in the paint.
Going into the game, SCSU head coach Kevin Schlagel was impressed with what he saw from the visiting team.
"When we watched them play, we were very impressed with how well-coached they were," Schlagel said. "They play fundamentally strong basketball, and they can shoot the ball. They're a dangerous basketball team."
The Huskies found themselves leading 46-28 at the half, and for the most part, never had to look back. Shooting just 6-for-16 from three-point range in the second half would be a small help for the Knights. Crossroads cut SCSU's lead to 10 points with 13:50 to play.
The Huskies answered with a 22-6 run, led 74-49 with 8:40 left and cruised in for the win. The game would see virtually every player on the Huskies roster play at least five minutes. The atmosphere of Tuesday's game was less subdued than that of three days earlier against the Mavericks.
Matt Siegle led SCSU with 22 points, seven rebounds and three blocked shots. It was the second straight game that the sophomore forward has come off the bench after the Huskies dropped back-to-back games two weeks ago to NCC opponents.
"I think Matt's been playing hard every day in practice and keeps getting better," said Huskies junior forward Steve Trull. "Coming off the bench might have lit a spark for him. He's just playing extremely well right now."
In the previously mentioned losses, Siegle combined for 13 points and 13 rebounds. Conversely, in his last two games, he has 41 points and 16 rebounds.
"It's not something we wanted to do (not starting him), but it's just that our post play as a group was not as good as we expected at South Dakota and Omaha," Schlagel said. "We talked to all (the posts) after we got back from that trip and said, 'Some of you have to step up and be more consistent.'"
Although he's started in 16 games this season, coming off the bench is not a new adjustment for the Long Prairie native. Siegle came off the bench for each of the 31 games he played last season. Siegle states that he's perfectly happy with his role.
"If I have to come off the bench and score 20 points, I'll do that," Siegle said. "If I have to come off the bench, score four and play really good defense, I'll do that. I'll do anything to help the team win."
Husky Notebook
Senior guard Alex Carlson was selected as the NCC men's basketball player of the week for games played on Jan. 31. He shares the NCC Player of the Week honors with MSU's Jamel Staten. Carlson had a career-high 34 points in the game. Carlson finished Tuesday's game with three points hitting a three-pointer at 1:27 of the first half.
Trull finished with 11 points, eight rebounds and four assists in 24 minutes. Junior center Joe Evert finished with 10 points and four rebounds in the win.
|
|
|
|
Privacy Policy Network Advertising Article Syndication
|
|
