SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Sacramento State came away with a gritty win in a back-and-forth contest, posting a 75-64 victory over North Dakota at The Nest on Sunday evening in a matchup of future Big Sky Conference foes.
Sophomore
Jamal Webb (Buffalo, N.Y.) scored a game-high 21 points for UND (5-6) on 7-of-9 shooting from the floor, but his squad could not overcome a second-half, three-point shooting flurry by the home team.
UND, who will leave California still in search of its first road win of the season, finished 2-2 against its future conference rivals this season winning home games against Montana and Idaho State.
Sacramento State senior Heath Hoffman scored a career-high 19 points on 4-of-5 shooting from beyond the arc to pace the Hornets. The home team made its first six attempts from distance in the second half and finished the stanza with a 7-for-8 effort.
Hoffman hit two of those treys in the opening five minutes of the second half that saw the Hornets (5-5) erase a six-point halftime deficit with a 12-0 run before Webb scored a putback.
“It is really hard to win on the road when your urgency is not there,” UND head coach
Brian Jones said. “We played really well for the first 20 minutes, but we only had about a four to five-minute stretch in the second half where we played at the level you have to in order to win on the road.
“I was proud of their will to get back in it after being down 11, but when we got back to within a point they got a couple of baskets on put backs that really did us in.”
Sacramento State would grow its lead to 13 with 11 minutes to play before UND clawed its way back with a 14-2 run. Sophomore
Aaron Anderson (Brooklyn Park, Minn.) capped the run with a layup, making it a 56-55 contest. He finished with 14 points and had the Sioux within three at 62-59, but an 8-0 run by the Hornets put the game out of reach.
The home team had control early in the contest as well, grabbing a 14-7 lead thanks to a 10-2 run that was capped by a Joe Eberhard layup with 12 minutes, 32 seconds to play, but UND would use its own 10-2 run, however, to regain the lead at 17-16.
That spurt was capped by a trio of free throws by sophomore
Troy Huff (Milwaukee, Wis.) after he was fouled on a deep shot from the right corner. The visitors used the free-throw line to their advantage in the opening 20 minutes, going 9-for-10 from the charity stripe.
After Huff put UND back ahead, the teams would exchange the lead four more times over the next five minutes before the Sioux closed the half on a 5-0 spurt that gave them a 35-29 lead at the break. Sophomore
Josh Schuler (Urbana, Ohio) connected on his second 3-pointer of the half and Anderson hit a driving layup with two seconds left to give UND its largest lead of the half.
UND missed its first seven shots from the floor in the second half that allowed the Hornets to regain the momentum. The teams were tied on the boards at 14-14 in the first half, but the home team owned the glass in the second half, holding a 23-8 advantage.
The Hornets finished the game with 16 second-chance points compared to just two for the visitors. Huff led UND with five boards, while Webb dished out five assists.
Sacramento State finished 9-for-13 from distance in the game (69.2 percent), while UND went just 8-for-26 from beyond the arc (8-for-26, 30.8 percent).
Senior
Patrick Mitchell (Des Moines, Iowa) was held to five points, but did block a game-high three shots to move into second place on the all-time charts at UND with 134 for his career.
UND will wrap up pre-Christmas play on Thursday with a non-conference tilt at Western Illinois. The teams played earlier this season in Grand Forks with the Leathernecks posting a 65-62 advantage. Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. CT in Macomb.
