Boxscore

NAMPA, Idaho - Trailing by 13 at the half, the Northwest Nazarene University men's basketball team battled back in the second period to force overtime against the 17th-ranked nationally Wildcats from Central Washington University.  However, the Wildcats controlled the extra frame and escaped with a 91-86 conference victory at the Johnson Sports Center.

 

CWU's Jamar Berry led all scorers with 31 points and NNU's Paul Egwuonwu had 24, 18 coming in the second half.

 

"I told the kids we played basketball in the first half...but we competed in the second half and that was the difference," commented NNU head coach Tim Hills.  "We had a chance to win it for the upset in regulation and we committed a costly turnover in the overtime."

 

The Crusaders (5-7, 1-4 GNAC) trailed 39-26 at the half, but opened the second stanza with a 7-0 run, fueled by the first of Drew Eisinger's three second-half three-pointers.  Jamie Eisinger added a mid-range jumper and Lateef Williams converted a baseline lay-in to draw the Crusaders within six at 33-39.

 

The Wildcats (11-2, 4-1 GNAC) answered emphatically with a Chris Sprinker drop-step dunk off a Drew Harris assist.  Sprinker was fouled on the play and added the free-throw to push the Wildcat lead back to nine at 42-33.  Sprinker finished with 10 points and five rebounds, while Harris scored 12, had five assists and four rebounds.

 

Trailing 47-40 with 14:38 left, NNU completed the comeback, scoring 11 straight points to take a four-point lead at 51-47 with 11:47 remaining.  Four players contributed in the run, ending with a jumper in the paint by Brian Barkdoll.  Barkdoll finished with eight points and two rebounds.

 

The Crusaders led by as many as seven (62-55, 8:13), but would see the Wildcats answer again with a 10-4 run to tie the score at 66-66 with 4:10 to play.  The run was powered entirely by CWU's Jody Johnson and Humberto Perez. 

 

Johnson scored seven of the 10 with a three-pointer, two free-throws, and a 10-foot jumper, while Perez added the final four off a jumper and two free-throws.  Johnson finished with 17 points and eight rebounds off the bench for CWU, while Perez added nine points and four assists.

 

The Crusaders would go eight-for-eight from the free throw line in the final 3:10 of regulation to force the overtime, led by Egwuonwu going six-of-six.

 

The Wildcats controlled the overtime as Berry scored seven and CWU was eight-of-11 from the free-throw line.

 

Drew Eisinger finished with 20 points and six rebounds and Jamie Eisinger added 11 points and a game-high six assists.  Three Crusaders grabbed six rebounds each as NNU won the rebounding battle 37-33.

 

The Crusaders shot 46.7-percent (28-60) from the field and seven-of-14 from the arc, while CWU was 27-of-58 (46.6-percent) from the floor and eight-of-19 (42.1-percent) from the three-point line.

 

NNU will travel to Montana State Billings next Thursday and Seattle Pacific University on Saturday for GNAC road counters.