SAN DIEGO – Northwest Nazarene men's basketball was not able to take advantage of a seven-point halftime lead against two-seed Cal State Dominguez Hills in the opening round of the NCAA DII West Regional on Friday, falling to the Toros 66-59.
The Nighthawks end their 2024-25 season at 20-8 overall. NNU's 20 wins tied a program Division II record for wins in a season with the 2018-19 squad.
NNU also finished second in the GNAC standings for the third time in the last four seasons, and reached the NCAA postseason for the third time in the last five years.
Sullivan Menard got the scoring started with a pair of free throws thirty seconds into the game. Dominguez Hills went on a 14-8 run over the next five minutes, taking a 14-10 lead at the 15:18 mark.
The Nighthawks broke through for a 10-0 run in the following three and a half minutes, however, starting with two more free throws from Menard.
Briggs Ranstrom converted a tough, driving layup and
Easton Reagan followed with back-to-back triples to give NNU a 20-14 lead with 11:30 remaining.
The Toros stopped the bleeding there, though, and slowly chipped away at the Nighthawks' lead over the next eight minutes, clawing back to even the score at 26 at the 3:40 mark.
NNU had another first-half run in them, though, closing the half with a 10-3 stretch to take a seven-point halftime lead. Reagan had six points in the run again with another two triples and
Kye Dickson added the other four points to bring it to 36-29 at the break.
Ranstrom opened the second half with a layup to put NNU up nine, but Dominguez Hills went on a 15-2 run over the next five minutes to go up 44-40 at the 14:18 mark.
NNU was able to right the ship and end the run, and with ten minutes left Biggie Bergersen drained a three to tie the game back up at 48-48.
After a few minutes of the lead changing hands, the Toros were able to open up a four-point advantage, 60-56, with 2:34 to play. NNU had five free throws in their next two possessions and could have taken the lead with five makes, but only converted two of them to cut the deficit to two.
From there, it was just a matter of CSUDH's free throw shooting, which was solid down the stretch including making their last six in a row to preserve the win.
Reagan led the Nighthawks with 15 points, followed by Menard with 13.
Kye Dickson and
Briggs Ranstrom each had 11 points, with Dickson also pulling down 10 rebounds for his 10
th double-double of the year.
