SACRAMENTO – Sacramento State held off a late charge by North Dakota to register a key 71-65 victory and pull even with the Green and White and three other Big Sky teams in a tie for third place in the league standings. The Hornets led by 15 at the break, but had to hold off a fierce rally by UND that was spearheaded by senior Jamal Webb.
The Buffalo native tied his career-high with 23 points and pulled down a season-high eight rebounds, but despite those efforts, the visitors could not dig all the way out of that hole.
The home win was the sixth straight in Big Sky play for the Hornets (12-12, 8-7 BSC), who also continued a trend in the series that has seen the home team win each of the first six meetings over the past three seasons.
Webb had 17 of his 23 in the second half as UND (11-14, 8-7 BSC) nearly doubled its first-half output with 43 points.
Webb and company trimmed their deficit all the down to five with under a minute to play, but SAC made six consecutive free throws down the stretch to keep the visitors from getting within a possession.
“We had open looks in the first half, but just could not get anything to fall,” UND head coach Brian Jones said. “I was proud of the way we fought back there in the second half, but this is a tough place to play and we needed to play a complete 40-minute game tonight.”
Mikh McKinney led the Hornets with 19 points and freshman Nicks Hornsby had a season-high 15 points to give SAC a season split with UND for the second straight season.
North Dakota could never find a rhythm offensively and turned the ball over eight times in the first half as SAC raced out to a 37-22 lead at the break. The Hornets shot 58 percent from the floor and limited the visitors to just a 31 percent clip.
SAC built its double-digit lead thanks to a 15-2 run that spanned more than nine minutes in the opening stanza. The only basket by UND during that stretch was a dunk by California native Ryan Salmonson, who was playing in front of more than a dozen friends and family members.
Salmonson, who was born just over an hour away in Auburn, opened the game with a dunk, but the Hornets scored the next six points to take a lead they would not relinquish. UND would square it up at 6-6, but SAC would follow that up with its big run to grow its lead to 21-8.
McKinney led all scorers with 10 points in the first half and the Hornets got a boost from their bench that accounted for 17. SAC's reserves finished with a 30-26 advantage, marking the first time in the last 13 games that UND's bench has been outscored.
SAC went 0-for-7 from the floor to start the second half before Dylan Garrity snapped a six-minute drought, but UND could only shave seven points off its deficit during that span. That spurt did cut trim SAC's lead to 37-29, but SAC would go on an 8-2 run to move back ahead by 14.
The Hornets built their largest lead of the game with 6:24 left on the clock, but UND reeled off 10 straight points in just over a two-minute span to make it a 57-51 contest.
Webb, who made a career-high seven free throws, kept his team within striking distance and Alonzo Traylor had a pair of old-fashioned 3-point plays late that also helped the cause, but UND could only get its deficit down to 64-59 with 52 ticks remaining.
Senior Troy Huff was limited to eight points, but moved into fourth place on UND's all-time scoring charts with 1,831 career points.
UND remains on the road and will play one of those teams it is tied with in the Big Sky standings on Saturday at Northern Arizona. Tip is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. CT.
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