LINCOLN, Neb. -- Nebraska Wesleyan never trailed as they earned their fifth straight victory with a 96-85 win over rival Doane College in GPAC men's basketball action Wednesday night (Jan. 14) in front of frenzied home crowd in Snyder Arena.
With their fifth straight victory, NWU improves to 7-8 overall and 4-6 in GPAC play to finish the first half of the conference season. It was the 100th time that NWU defeated their rival Doane in the all-time series history and the victory was the program's 1,400th win as Nebraska Wesleyan becomes just the sixth NAIA basketball team with 1400 wins.
NWU jumped out to a 5-0 lead and never trailed the rest of the way. Doane would remained close most of the game and trailed just 41-36 at halftime. In the second half, the Prairie Wolves built up a 13-point lead only to see Doane get back to six with 9:08 remaining. The six point deficit would be as close as Doane could get as the Prairie Wolves kept answering with big shots.
A 3-point play by Deonte Holt cut the NWU lead to 78-71 with 3:54 remaining but
Nick Stine responded with a 3-pointer to put the lead back to 10 points and it remained double figures the rest of the way.
Stine was one of five NWU players to reach double figures in scoring. He had a career-high 19 points, going 4-9 from 3-point range and a perfect 5-5 at the free throw line.
GPAC Player-of-the-Week
Travis Giesselmann notched a double-double with 18 points and 10 rebounds, while the conference's leading scorer
Trey Bardsley also had 18 points hitting 3-6 from long range.Â
Keithan Karn came off the bench to score 16 points and
Byron Thompson scored 13 with six assists.
NWU shot 49.3 percent from the field and hit 12-31 from long range. Doane was just below the Prairie Wolves at 49.2 percent from the floor but did hold a +3 rebounding advantage.
Deonte Holt led all scorers with 26 points as one of three Tiger players in double figures. Nate Kuhl had 19 with nine rebounds, while Rylee Zimmerman came off the bench for 14 points.
Nebraska Wesleyan begins the second half of the GPAC schedule on Sunday with a trip to Mitchell, S.D., to face the conference leader and No. 3 ranked Dakota Wesleyan.
