Southwest State sweeps St. Cloud; men and women both 12-2 in the Northern Sun

The Northern Sun started life as the Northern Teachers Conference consisting of the Bemidji Duluth, Mankato, Moorhead, St. Cloud and Winona teachers colleges. Today, of course, the conference is known as the Northern Sun, and it has 15 members–9 in Minnesota and the rest in the Dakotas and Nebraska. Jamestown is joining soon to bring the membership back up to 16 schools. I don’t know about you, but when I think about the Northern Sun, I think about UMD, St. Cloud and Mankato. Maybe that’s because I’ve known people who went there, or maybe it’s because they play D1 hockey.

But, mainly, I’m a basketball fan and so 2025 is as good a time as any to learn that Southwest State is a part of the NSIC. Right now a big part, thanks to coaches Brad Bigler and Tom Webb. Granted, they’ve only got 59 conference championships since joining the NSIC in 1969. (Duluth has 212, Mankato 179, Winona 131, Moorhead 126 and St. Cloud just 86.) In men’s basketball, Duluth and Mankato have 26 (including both regular season and playoff titles), and Winona and St. Cloud have 24. Southwest has 6. Among the women, Duluth has 19, Concordia-St. Paul 9, St. Cloud 7, and Mankato, Moorhead and Southwest State 5 each.

Southwest State men 63 St. Cloud State 60

The Southwest State Mustangs men stayed in 1st place this year by snatching victory from the jaws of defeat 63-60 at St. Cloud last night. St. Cloud pulled away from a 24-23 deficit at 9 minutes of the 1st half to a 38-30 halftime lead as Lucas Morgan scored 5 points and 4 other Huskies scored once each. They extended their lead to 51-36 at 12 minutes. St. Cloud was playing stellar defense as Southwest consistently settled for contested shots late in the shot clock. The fact that the Mustangs were nevertheless shooting almost 50 percent says a lot.

And then things turned around. 5 different Southwest players scored 11 straight points, though St. Cloud was able to right ship, more or less, and to lead 60-54 at 2:08. But the Mustangs closed on a 9-0 run. Mekhi Shaw scored a 2 + 1. Mason Lund hit a pair of throws, then got a steal, leading to 2 more throws by Steve Kramer, and Southwest had their 1st lead since 24-23. Jakob Braaten then missed the front end of a 1-and-1 at :19 for Southwest, but then Nate Dahl did the same for St. Cloud at :03.5  Braaten made a pair of throws at :02 for the final score.

6 Southwest players scored during its 27-9 run to the final buzzer–Braaten and Kramer with 6, Aeron Stevens and Lund with 5, Shaw with 3 and Calvin Buss with 2. St. Cloud guards Nate Dahl and Luke Winkel had gotten the best of it most of the way, but Braaten and Kramer and Shaw took over in the late going. Inside, the Mustangs’ Lund and Stevens got somewhat the best of the Huskies Wyatt Hawks and Kynan Phillippe. Probably the biggest buckets came off steals by Kramer and Braaten at about 9 and 6 minutes, that cut the St. Cloud lead to 51-43 and then 51-47.

St. Cloud, for the record, lost their best player, Jamir Allen, 5 games into the season. “They’ve kept it pretty much under wraps,” a St. Cloud dad told me, but the freshman from Wisconsin Lutheran was apparently desperately unhappy with his situation up to and including fights with teammates. The Huskies asked him to leave, though no announcement has ever been made. Through 5 games Allen was averaging 17 ppg with 3 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 steals.

As noted, Southwest is in 1st place in the NSIC at 12-2. Minot State is next at 11-3. CSP is 10-4. Mankato, St. Cloud, Winona and Duluth are all somewhere between 9-4 and 8-5. Southwest has now played 4 of the 6 .500+ teams so its biggest challenges would appear to be back-to-back games at Duluth on Feb. 5 and Winona at home on Feb. 8.

Southwest State women 73 St. Cloud State 57

This one remained close at 23-all at the half as the 2 teams shot a combined 19-of-56 (34%). Southwest scored the 1st 10 points of the 2nd half to lead 33-23, but it was still just 46-41 after 3 and 50-46 at 7:47. From there it was all Southwest as Audrey Swanson, Peyton Blandin and Bri Stoltzman combined for 24 of Southwest’s last 27 points on 6-of-11 FG and 10-of-11 FT. The daggers were a pair of 3s by Stoltzman and Blandin between 5 and 6 minutes to increase their lead from 52-49 to 58-51. Swanson and Stoltzman added 8 rebounds between then over the last 8 minutes.

Mankato remains in 1st place at 13-1 but lost for the 1st time (in the conference) Friday night at Northern. Southwest and CSP are each 12-2, and Northern State is 10-4. Some big games remaining include Mankato at CSP on Jan. 30, Northern at CSP on Feb. 14 and Southwest State at Northern on Feb. 22.

 

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