St. Norbert Holds Off Beloit

From Sports Information Director, February 13, 2008 | Men's Basketball
by Dan Lukes, dan.lukes@snc.edu, (920) 403-4077

BELOIT - St. Norbert College withstood a late Beloit College rally to post a hard-fought 73-62 road win in a Midwest Conference game at Flood Arena.

The Green Knights maintained their third-place standing in the Midwest Conference at 9-5 and are now 13-8 overall. It's the third-most wins for the men's basketball program in the last 14 years and the fourth-most in the last 21 seasons. Beloit fell to 4-17, 2-12.

Both teams played to a 24-24 draw at the end of the first half, with the first 20 minutes featuring seven ties. The Green Knights opened the first six minutes of the second half on a 14-4 run to take a 38-28 lead.

St. Norbert pushed its lead out to 56-41 with 7:33 left on a Bryan Fleischmann 3-pointer and led again by 15 at 58-43 with 6:13 to go on a pair of Jake Dietz free throws. From there, Beloit would go on a 12-0 run over the next three minutes to cut it to 58-55 with 3:24 left on an Andy Horton layup.

Paul Mallers made both ends of a 1-and-1 with 3:01 left but Horton countered to cut the deficit back to three with a jumper with 2:49 to play. From there, St. Norbert struggled to get a shot off but Mike Dowden - who transferred to St. Norbert from Beloit this season - canned an off-balance 3-pointer with a defender flying by him as the shot clock expired for a 63-57 advantage. From there, St. Norbert would make all 10 of its free throws to close out the win.

All five starters reached double figures for St. Norbert. Eric Bieniasz scored 18 points, with Dietz recording his first double-double with 11 points and 13 rebounds. Tony Jandron and Mallers each added 10 points. St. Norbert held a 36-22 rebounding advantage, was 17-for-18 at the free-throw line, had nine turnovers and was whistled for just eight fouls.

Beloit was led by Horton's 22 points, while Derek Lovgren added 13 points. Beloit made 50 percent of its field goals but was just 3-for-16 (18.8 percent) from beyond the three-point arc.