Staff photo by Steve Muscatello Martin Luther College’s Ian Paulsen takes a shot over a Northland defender during the first half Saturday at MLC in New Ulm. For more photos of this event go to cu.nujournal.com

NEW ULM — The Martin Luther College men’s basketball team was unable to complete the season-sweep of Northland College in a 65-50 loss on Saturday.

The LumberJacks opened the game by making 10 of their 14 shots to take a 13-point lead, but the Knights held them to only 2-18 shooting the rest of the way as they cut the deficit to 30-25 heading into the half.

Northland once again started strong in the second half, quickly pushing the lead back into double figures. MLC cut the deficit back to 5, 53-48, with just under seven minutes to play. But the LumberJacks closed the game out with a 12-2 run to secure the win and the season split.

MLC was held to 36.2 percent shooting for the game and 4-19 from beyond the three-point arc. Northland finished with a shooting percentage of 43.1 percent.

Ian Paulsen returned to the lineup for MLC and led all players with 22 points on 10-19 shooting. He also tied for the team lead with three assists. Joshua Schroeder led the team with seven rebounds to go with 6 points. Richard Eckmann and Austin DeNoyer each scored 7 points for MLC.

MLC fell to 2-15 overall and 1-8 in UMAC play in defeat. Northland improved to 7-10 on the season and 4-5 in league play with the win.

The Knights will return to action on Wednesday when they travel to Bethany Lutheran College for a game scheduled to tip off at 5:30 p.m.