Strong 2nd-half start too much for MLC, Spurgeon earns win
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NEW ULM -- Spurgeon College turned a 3-point halftime lead into a 22-point lead early in the second half Thursday night, downing Martin Luther College 94-80 in a nonconference men's basketball game.
MLC was led by Micah Kieselhorst's 21 points and nine rebounds, while Thomas Balge added 16 points, five rebounds and four assists and Nathan Miller had 14 points with four 3-pointers.
Spurgeon was led by Drew Middleton's 22 points and five assists, while Jude Warren had 18 points and 10 rebounds, Evan Deleon had 17 points and Michael Berry added 14 points.
The Spurgeon Knights made the trip to Minnesota from Kansas City, Missouri, this week, falling to the University of Northwestern in St. Paul on Wednesday.
MLC was riding high after back-to-back wins to start the week over Maranatha Baptist and looking to make it three wins in a row, but Spurgeon had other ideas.
The Knights of MLC got the literal jump on Spurgeon Thursday night after winning the opening tip-off that led to an immediate 2-0 lead after a fast-break layup from Seth Veers. But it didn't take Spurgeon long to make things tough on MLC, utilizing a full-court press for much of the game to create havoc.
MLC ended up committing 21 turnovers in the game to Spurgeon's nine.
"It's not a typical style you see in the UMAC, but we prepared for it, we knew they were going to throw it at us," Kieselhorst said of the press. "But it's tough to emulate that in practice, so it's a lot different when a team's used to running that as opposed to trying to emulate that in practice. So it was definitely tough."
After MLC fell behind 30-23 with less than eight minutes left in the first half after a fast-break bucket by Warren, it adjusted and put together a 9-0 run to lead 32-30. A 3 by Miller moments later had MLC up 37-32, its largest lead of the night.
Spurgeon ended the half on a high note, leading 47-44 at halftime.
The first six minutes of the second half got ugly for MLC as Spurgeon put a 17-0 run together to open the half and lead 64-44. A free throw by MLC's Trey Lauber ended the run, but Spurgeon quickly got a 3 by Middleton to take its largest lead of the night, 67-45.
MLC battled back and cut the deficit to 70-58 after a 3 by Miller with a little more than 10 minutes to play, but Spurgeon pushed its lead back up to 17 after that and never let MLC cut its deficit to single digits after that.
"They're a good team, all credit to them, their coach coaches them really well," Kieselhorst said. "Good shooters, we didn't get out to them, so that was tough. And just some quick shots over there, and just like that, the momentum, when you get the ball rolling, it's hard to stop them. Luckily when we got into it, we were able to slow it down a little bit and get back into it, but unfortunately it was a little bit too late."
Spurgeon moved to 11-5 on the season with the win.
Despite the loss dropping MLC to 4-14 on the season, it passed its win total from a tough two-win 2022-23 season after Monday and Tuesday's wins. MLC will host Bethany Lutheran College at 1:45 p.m. Saturday.
Kieselhorst, in his fifth and final year of playing college basketball, said he's happy to pass last year's win total and looks forward to hosting BLC once more.
"Been a lot of fun, awesome group of guys and it's great to surpass that win total from last year, always fun to play Bethany," Kieselhorst said. "Obviously they're out cross-town rivals, they're over in Mankato. They're a great team, once again, great coach, love playing against them. I've played them all every single year, I know their guys really well. So I'm just really looking forward to playing them one more time. I can't wait."