MINOT, N.D. – Minot State University's Trevor Rothstein hit a 3-pointer with seven second remaining to force overtime, but the Beavers were outscored 17-12 in OT as St. Cloud State escaped the Minot State Dome with a 96-91 win in Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference men's basketball.

The Beavers (12-14 overall, 8-12 NSIC) led for 33 minutes in the game, but couldn't close out SCSU (18-11, 14-6) as the Huskies outscored MSU 51-43 in the second half. SCSU shot 70 percent in the second, missing just nine shots in 30 attempts.

"It was a high intensity game the whole time," said MSU head coach Matt Murken. "We needed to execute a little better in the second half. They are such a diverse offensive team and they made some really tough shots. That was high level basketball.
"I thought we made enough plays to win, but it didn't go our way."

Minot State was great on both ends of the court to open the game and led 30-13 on a jumper by Nathaniel Moore 12 minutes into the first half. It was 32-15 with 5:16 to play before halftime after a bucket by Channing Reed.

But SCSU didn't go away.

The Huskies cut it to 36-28 at half, tied the game at 55 on a layup by Gage Davis at the midway point of the second half and countered the Beavers every more with Davis, Scottie Stone and Jon Averkamp in the final 10 minutes.

MSU played the second half in foul trouble and lost leading scorer Tyler Rudolph with just over four minutes to play with his fifth foul. He finished with 17 points and five rebounds but played just 26 minutes. Murken was pleased with how his team responded to that adversity.

"We were basically in foul trouble the whole way and then it goes to overtime, that's a lot of time for us to have to make plays and for the most part we did," he said.

Picking up a lot of the slack was senior Nathan Mertens. Mertens finished his final regular season home game with 22 points, seven assists and three rebounds, while turning the ball over one time. On the weekend, he finished with 20 assists and just the one miscue.

"Obviously, this isn't how I wanted to end the regular season here, but we will continue to work next week, get two and see how it goes," he said. "We are a better team with Tyler in the game, he's a great player, but the guys competed hard."

"Nate was really good," Murken said of Mertens. "He played really good defense and made great decisions and got to the bucket for us."

The SCSU trio of Davis, Stone and Averkamp combined for 77 of the team's 96 points. Davis was a thorn in the Beavers' side scoring 34, while adding 11 assists and nine rebounds. Averkamp added 23 points and four rebounds. SCSU was 11 of 23 from beyond the arc and hit 15 of 17 free throws including all four in overtime.

Along with Mertens and Rudolph, MSU had three others in double figures. Luis Ricci Maia scored 17 points and added six rebounds, Moore pitched in with 14 and Russ Davis scored 10. Moore also pulled down a career-high nine rebounds. MSU was 16 of 20 in the game from the free throw line, but missed three of those in overtime.

The Beavers will look to regroup on the road in the regular-season finale, traveling to Minnesota Crookston Friday and Bemidji State Saturday.

About Minot State
Minot State University is a member of the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference (NSIC) and NCAA Division II offering 14 men's and women's varsity intercollegiate athletics programs. The NSIC is a premier NCAA DII, 16-member conference featuring teams in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska and Iowa. The Beavers are the only public NCAA Division II institution in the state of North Dakota.