They had a weird double-header down in Mankato last night. Now, the Northern Sun plays the vast majority of its games as men’s-women’s double-headers and that’s what they did last night. But, for reasons unknown to me, the Minnesota State women played Concordia-St. Paul while the Minnesota State men played UMD. Both were significant games, and both of the results were highly satisfactory to the hosts. The Maverick and CSP women came in tied for 1st in the NSIC at 5-1, and Mankato held off a CSP 2nd half rally to win 72-61 to take sole possession of 1st place. The Mav men also came into last night tied for the lead at 6-0 with UMD in 3rd at 5-1. In this case, Mankato rallied in the 2nd half and eked out a 100-96 win in OT.
Minnesota State (Mankato) women 72 Concordia St. Paul 61
CSP led only once at 2-0, and Mankato pulled out to a 21-11 lead as CSP had a staggering 12 turnovers in the 1st quarter alone leading to 11 Mankato points. CSP had another 8 turnovers in the 2nd quarter and Mankato led at the half 41-28. CSP still trailed 59-40 after 3 quarters despite shooting the ball better than Mankato, as the turnovers were 27 for CSP and 9 for the Mavs.
The 4th quarter was almost all CSP. The Bears outscored Mankato 19-6 over the 1st 9 minutes. They never quite made it a one-possession game but they did get within 65-59 at 0:58 as Lindsey Becher, a 6-1 junior from Mounds View, scored 8 of her 16 points for the Bears in the 4th. But Mankato’s Hannah Herzig, a 6-0 sophomore from Totino-Grace, scored 6 of her 15 points in those 58 seconds to hold off CSP.
It’s no longer big news down in Mankato that Mavs guard Joey Batt, a 5-5 senior from New Ulm and the NSIC’s pre-season player of the year, is back. She missed the 1st 5 games and the Mavs started 2-3. The Mavs also lost her 1st game back to UMD, but they’ve now won 6 in a row by an average of 26 points. Batt led Mankato with 16 points last night, one below her average, while adding 6 steals, 2 more than her average. Destinee Bursch, a 5-9 junior from Eden Prairie, added 16 points, 4 assists and 3 steals, while Natalie Bremer, a 5-11 soph from Lake City, scored 12. Megan Gamble, a 5-11 junior from Becker, joined Becher in scoring 16 for the Bears.
It doesn’t get any easier for the Mavs, who will return to conference action on Friday, Jan. 5 at home against 1st place tied Northern State, then play Northern and 3rd place tied UMD and Southwest State all on the road before it’s all said and done. CSP plays only at Northern and SW State at home among the big 5.
Minnesota State (Mankato) men 100 UMD 96 (OT)
UMD opened with a 15-9 lead but Mankato battled back to lead 19-18. This pretty much set the tone as there would be 15 ties and 12 lead changes, 9 of them in the 1st half, before all was said and done. The Mavs took brief leads of 33-32 and 37-35 in the 1st half, and a 3 by Justin Eagins, a 6-3 junior from Illinois, got Mankato within 43-42 at the half. But it’s also true that UMD led much of the way until about the 8 minute mark of the 2nd half when the Mavs briefly took control. Drew Blair, a 6-5 grad from Wisconsin, who became UMD’s all-time career scorer earlier this year, had 17 1st half points while Charlie Katona, a 6-6 senior from Shakopee, had 8 points and 6 boards. Guard Malik Willingham, a 6-3 senior from Waseca, led the Mavs with 12 plus 3 assists while Peeters, a 6-8 grad from Iowa, had 8 points and 3 boards at that point.
UMD drew 1st blood in the 2nd half to lead 45-42, but Mankato tied it up at 45, 47, 52, 65 and 68 in the 2nd half before taking the lead again at 69-68 at 8:20. From 72-all, Mankato scored 7 straight, 5 of them by Eagins, to lead 79-72 at 4:32. They still led 84-79 at 0:30, but UMD tied it up at 84 with a 12-5 run. 8 of those 12 points came from the FT line, but Matt Thompson, a 6-7 soph from Duluth East, missed a throw at :09 that would have put UMD up 85-84. Instead, it went to OT at 84-all. Willingham scored 15 and Peeters 11 2nd half points for the Mavs. Blair and Katona continued to lead UMD with 12 and 7 2nd half points, respectively.
Mankato never trailed in OT but again UMD tied things up at 94-all as Blair and Katona each scored 5. But Peeters’ 2nd dunk of the OT and his 7th and 8th points of OT on a pair of late FT made the final 100-96.
The game itself was close, but the stats were not, because it was a battle of contrasts. UMD clobbered the Mavs on the offensive boards 18-4 and led 21-7 in 2nd chance points. They got off 10 more shots and scored 4 more FG than Mankato. They had a big 58-38 edge in points in the paint, but the Mavs equalized a lot of that with a 5-1 edge in 3-pointers, though neither team shot the 3 very well. But, in the end, you might say that the game was decided at the FT line. UMD got 8 more FTA than Mankato but made just one more FT. Mankato made 22-of-25 (88%) while UMD made 23-of-33 (70%) and just 12-of-19 (63%) in the 2nd half.
The Mavericks are now 7-0 in the Northern Sun and 13-0 overall, while UMD is now 2 games back. But the more immediate threat to Mankato is that other Minnesota State (Moorhead), who is 6-0. Mankato has 6 winnable games in January before finally running into Moorhead at Mankato on Sat. Jan. 27. They (the Mavs) then travel to UMD the following Tues., Jan. 30. If they win those 2, an undefeated season is hardly out of the question for coach Matt Marganthaler in his 23rd year at the helm. Marganthaler’s Mavs won 20+ games 13 times in 14 years through 2018 but has not won 20 in the 5 years since. A turnaround from 17 wins last year to a possible unbeaten conference champion this year would be a heck of an accomplishment for a heck of a coach.