NAMPA, Idaho – Northwest Nazarene men's basketball earned a hard-fought victory on Thursday night, taking down Saint Martin's 68-63 in front of a rowdy home crowd.
The Nighthawks improve to 10-5 in GNAC play at 17-6 overall. Pending results in the Alaska Fairbanks-Seattle Pacific game later tonight, NNU could clinch a GNAC postseason berth with an SPU win.
Saint Martin's scored the first four points of the game, but
Briggs Ranstrom countered with four points of his own to tie the game early.
The teams traded blows over most of the first half, with neither team leading by more than four.
The Saints had a couple of four-point advantages late in the period, but the Nighthawks finished the final two and a half minutes on an 8-2 run to go into the break up 27-25. Biggie Bergersen started the run with a triple, followed by two free throws from Ranstrom and three from
Yaru Harvey.
SMU tied things up with a bucket to start the second half, but NNU responded with layups from
Kye Dickson and Ranstrom to go up four, 31-27, with 18:25 on the clock.
NNU extended their lead to seven, 45-38, on an
Easton Reagan layup at the 13:15 mark. The Saints countered with a quick 6-0 run, however, to cut the lead to one.
The Nighthawks would not give up the lead, though, going back up by five, 51-46, on a Dickson layup with 9:42 to play. NNU still led by six four minutes later, but the Saints cut the margin back down to two, 61-59, with 4:03 left.
NNU again pushed their lead back to six after a pair of Reagan free throws made it 65-59 with just over two minutes to play. The Saints followed with back-to-back buckets to cut it back down to two with 45 seconds left.
Dickson would put the game away at the free throw line, though, dropping through three from the charity stripe to secure the five-point victory.
Dickson was NNU's top scorer with 20 points, narrowly missing a double-double with eight rebounds.
Easton Reagan was next with 16 points, six boards, and three blocks, followed by
Briggs Ranstrom with 12 points, nine rebounds, and three blocks.
Zane Foster also contributed 12 rebounds and three blocks.
Saint Martin's went just 7-16 (44%) from the free throw line, while the Nighthawks made 21 of 28 for 75%. NNU also outmatched SMU on the boards at 48-36.
The Nighthawks, now 13-1 in the Johnson Sports Center this year, now head into their final home game of the season this Saturday when they host Western Oregon at 7:30 p.m. NNU's four seniors will also be honored before the contest: Biggie Bergersen,
Yaru Harvey,
Sullivan Menard, and
Zane Foster.
