NAMPA, Idaho – Adalberto Diaz started Thursday's game on fire and Ezekiel Alley finished it.

In between, the Northwest Nazarene men's basketball team let a double-digit lead get away from them, before righting the ship in the end for a 77-76 victory against Concordia in Great Northwest Athletic Conference action.

The Nighthawks (14-8 overall, 11-6 GNAC) led by as many as 17 in the second half before the Cavaliers cut the lead to 60-58 with 2 minutes, 39 seconds left in the game.

"Every time we get into a situation like that our mentality is that we are not going to lose," Diaz said. "We practice too hard, go through drills in practice too much and Coach (Paul) Rush works too hard to prepare us for us to lose. We don't get scared.

"We knew what we had to do and we just went out there and executed."

Alley, who was 1-for-7 at that point, scored 10 consecutive points to put the Nighthawks up 70-62.

He started it with his only 3-pointer of the night, then made a free throw and had a three-point play for a 67-60 lead. He then split a pair of free throws and made a fastbreak layup off a steal by George Reidy to open up the eight-point lead.

"It was getting close and I didn't want to lose the game," Alley said. "It was really crucial, so I just wanted to attack the basket and do what my coach says and try to get some points on the board."
 

Jayden Bezzant then scored off of a baseball pass from Sam Roth and Diaz hit three free throws and Alley two more. Concordia made a 3-pointer at the buzzer for the final score.

"Zeke is a scorer and regardless of how he starts a game, we want him to stay in that mentality," Rush said. "It was good to see him turn it on at the end. We need him and Beto and JB (Bezzant) and George to be in that mentality – that scorer's mentality – because that is their role."

Diaz finished with a career-high 27 points and nine rebounds. Alley had 14 points, Bezzant had 10 and four assists, Sam Roth and Reidy each had nine and Olamilekan Adetunji had 11 rebounds.

Diaz came out scorching hot, scoring 15 points and grabbing seven rebounds in 11 minutes in the first half.

"They were giving me open shots and they weren't closing out on me as a shooter," Diaz said. "My teammates kept telling me to shoot it."

Diaz had his monster night in front of his brother and mother, who were in town from Arizona as he will play his final home game Saturday.

"It was a lot of fun to see," Rush said. "You could tell he was locked in on both ends of the floor. It was a fun game for him."

The win keeps the Nighthawks in a three-way tie for second place with three games to play. They have a one-game lead on the fifth-place team and a two-game lead on the sixth and seventh-place teams. The top six teams advance to the GNAC tournament scheduled for March 5-7 at Seattle Pacific.

The Nighthawks now must bounce back from a subpar second half as they prepare for a Western Oregon team that has won four consecutive games.

"We have to flip the switch," Diaz said. "We can't sleep on Western Oregon, for sure. We can't play like we did in the second half tonight, so we need to come out strong and hopefully get the win."

Elroi Butler and Dakota Ayala each scored 15 points to lead Concordia (3-22, 2-15), which was making its final trip to Nampa after the school announced it is ceasing operations at the end of the semester.