Lopers Come Back to Beat Mesa State, 73-65

Kearney, Neb. - The Nebraska-Kearney men's basketball team had three players score in double figures, and overcame a rocky start, to beat Mesa State, 73-65, Saturday night at the Health & Sports Center.

UNK (4-2, 2-0 RMAC) has won four of the last five meetings against the Mavericks (4-2, 0-2 RMAC) to lead the all-time series, 22-4.

Things didn't look promising for the Lopers early on as they trailed 22-10 nine minutes into the game. For a good portion of the first half, Mesa was shooting close to 70 percent while UNK couldn't find the bucket, missing 15 of its first 19 field goals.

Eventually, the Lopers warmed up and got back into the game thanks to the three ball and the play of sophomore post Drew Sankey (Lincoln East). He went 6 of 8 from the field in the first half with the rest of the team a combined 6 of 21.

UNK did make 8 of its last 10 field goals to trail 43-38 at the break. Sankey had three of these eight makes with guards Michael Vandahl (Steamboat Springs, Colo.) and Akeem Morissaint (Delray Beach, Fla.), along with forward Ben Klein (Plainview), each hitting three pointers.

The Lopers still trailed for the 15 minutes of the second half but were never behind more than seven points. Some full court pressure, combined with Mesa cooling off, helped UNK take a 58-57 lead with 5:34 to play.

The lead grew to four after a three from Morissaint and then a steal by post Mike Dentlinger (Millard North) led to a Sankey layup. Mesa wouldn't get the deficit under four the rest of the way as UNK made 8 of 10 free throws in the final three minutes.

UNK ended the night at 43.8 percent (21 of 48) from the field with the Mavs making half of its shots (25 of 49) but sinking only 36.0 percent (9 of 25) of them after the break. The Lopers also went 25 of 32 at the line compared to Mesa's 12 of 18 effort.  Next, 20 Mesa turnovers led to 16 Loper points with UNK winning the battle on the glass, 31-26.

Sankey had his fourth career double digit game as he scored a team-high 16 points on 8 of 11 field goal shooting. Coming three points shy of his career high, Sankey also had four rebounds and two steals in 25 minutes.

In addition to eight dimes, Froehlich went 10 of 11 at the line and scored 12 of his 14 points in the second half with Morissaint tallying 12 points on 3 of 7 three point shooting.

Mesa also had a balanced attack as reserve forward Colton Burgon (team-high 14 points) was one of four in double digits.

UNK is in Denver the next two weekends with Metro State and Regis up first.