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Rothe hits milestone in loss

NEW ULM – Luke Rothe eclipsed the 1,000-point mark as Martin Luther College fell to Macalester College 80-64 in a nonconference men’s basketball game on Monday.

Rothe became the 11th player in school history to surpass 1,000 career points – a miraculous achievement considering the head injury he sustained during the baseball season in spring 2015 that almost certainly assured him that he would never play sports again.

“It’s a very humbling experience,” Rothe said. “One, how God blessed me with a quick recovery that I’m able to play basketball again. Just the reflection of all the amazing guys I’ve played with runs through your head and it’s really a neat thing. I’m just happy to be on a team again.”

Rothe sat out the entire 2015-16 athletic season to preserve his final year of eligibility during his recovery process. On Monday, he led the Knights with 16 points – 14 in the second half – on 5-of-9 shooting.

“It’s really special; I’m really happy for him because I’m sure he was thinking when the injury occurred that he was never going to be able to step on a basketball floor again,” MLC first-year coach Greg Holzhueter said. “But he’s worked really hard to recover. I’m just so happy for him that he gets to enjoy his final year of college basketball.”

The Knights (1-4) garnered their first lead of the night with a jumper by freshman Jeffrey Parker that made it 15-14 with 10:47 to go in the first half.

MLC had the lead for a little more than nine minutes until the 1:36 mark, when junior Brett Olson drilled a 3-pointer to make it 30-29. Olson then hit another jumper to make it 32-29, which capped off a 10-2 run that sucked the momentum away from MLC.

“That was a tough run for us,” Holzhueter said. “We talked about at halftime that it was really just a fatigue issue there. When we got a little bit tired toward the end of the half, we stopped doing the things that were helping us to be successful for the first 18 minutes of the first half.”

Olson opened the second half with a 3 from the corner before senior Jordan Black-Mathews hit a layup to give the Scots (4-1) an eight-point lead. Rothe got the deficit back to six with a layup but from there, the Scots cruised to a double-digit lead that stuck for the rest of the night.

Senior Dylan Kilgour led all scorers with 29 points on 11-of-18 shooting from the floor, including five 3s. Olson had 15 points, while Black-Mathews and sophomore Michael Gutierrez each had 11 points apiece for the Scots.

Behind Rothe’s 16 points, senior Phil Bunkowske had 10 points on 4-of-5 shooting coming off the bench for MLC. Freshman Ian Paulsen led the MLC starters with eight points and eight rebounds.

MLC hosts Bethany Lutheran at 5 p.m. Saturday.

Macalester 32 48 – 80

MLC 29 35 – 64

MACALESTER (80)

Ismail 4-9 1-2 9, Black-Mathews 2-4 7-8 11, Kilgour 11-18 2-2 29, Gutierrez 2-9 6-6 11, Olson 6-8 0-0 15, Salvino 1-5 0-0 3, Goeden 0-4 0-0 0, Joseph 0-1 0-0 0, Gullerud 0-0 2-2 2, Siegel 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 26-59 18-20 80.

MLC (64)

Eckmann 3-6 0-1 7, VonDeylen 3-9 0-0 6, Parker 2-9 0-0 4, Babinec 1-8 2-4 5, Paulsen 4-10 0-0 8, Goelzer 0-1 0-0 0, Rothe 5-9 5-9 16, Bunkowske 4-5 2-3 10, Tomlin 2-6 0-0 6, Peterson 1-3 0-0 2. Totals 25-66 9-17 64.

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