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Rough second half dooms Knights

Staff photo by Steve Muscatello Martin Luther College’s Ian Paulsen (21) takes a shot over Jared Wilken of St. Scholastica Wednesday at MLC in New Ulm. For more photos of this event go to cu.nujournal.com

NEW ULM — While Martin Luther College coach Greg Holzhueter was happy his team was able to get the deficit within 8 points at halftime in Wednesday’s contest against St. Scholastica, even he wasn’t expecting what happened in the second half.

The Saints (6-6, 3-2) took an 8-point lead at halftime and then ran away in the second half, defeating MLC 86-62 in Upper Midwest Athletic Conference action.

The loss dropped MLC’s record to 1-11 overall and 1-4 in the UMAC. It was the fourth straight loss for the team.

While the final score indicated that it wasn’t a close game, the Knights didn’t play that bad. They committed just nine turnovers in the game and were outrebounded 42-35.

“It’s been game by game, but we did not do a good job of that [taking care of the ball] on Saturday against Luther, so that was a point of emphasis tonight, to get more quality possessions and make sure we give ourselves and opportunity to score,” Holzhueter said. “I thought we did a pretty good job of that tonight of not turning the ball over.”

The Knights trailed by double digits for much of the first half, but they came back late to get it to 41-33 at halftime.

However, the Saints shot 53 percent from the field in the second half and the Knights were unable to match that offensive output on their end.

“They’re a good team, we need to find a way against a team like that to do a little bit more,” Holzhueter said. “Each guy has to talk a little bit more, we have to play with a little bit more energy, be a little bit quicker side to side. We just didn’t do that tonight, we didn’t respond to the way that St. Scholastica was playing and they punished us for it.”

St. Scholastica outscored MLC 45-29 in the second half. Collin Anderson led all scorers with 20 points and Jarod Wilken scored 13 points. Dylan Zimmerman finished with 12 points and Sam Thompson scored 11 for St. Scholastica.

MLC was led by Austin DeNoyer’s 13 points. Ian Paulsen finished with 10 points and Jared Ruffin had 9 points.

MLC will play the second game of a four-game homestand at 5 p.m. on Saturday when it hosts Maranatha.

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