On Friday, Winona State University fell a little short against Northern State University (NSU) after having the lead in the first. In the McCown Gymnasium, home of WNB Financial Court, the final score was 77 – 74, where in the last minute Northern State scored 5 points and finished the game 3 points ahead. In the last four seconds, Winona State got a chance to score a 3 shot and tie the match but failed to, like how they failed against Upper Iowa University and Minnesota State University, Mankato.

Home games are not going well for the Warriors this season as they lost seven games out of nine at home. Compared to that they are doing better in their away games where they have five wins in eight games. The Warriors are showing their best at the neutral venues as they have four straight wins in four matches, which made their overall 11 – 10.

Warrior captain Luke Martens was asked in an interview about the pressure in home games but he replied “No pressure. It’s just I don’t know, we’re just at home. We haven’t been able to finish on the road. We’ve been splitting or even. I don’t think we’ve swept away to begin the season. We did. But love the fans, I wish we could give them more wins. They’ve been great. Most of the games all the students, football, baseball, soccer, any sport that comes, we greatly appreciate it and we’re just trying to get a win for them.”

Winona State’s last face-off with Northern State was on Jan. 22, 2022, a contest that saw the Warriors knock off the Wolves 83-74 in front of nearly 3,500 fans in Aberdeen, S.D. On Friday, the Winona State faithful saw the home side start in impressive fashion with a nine-point lead in the opening minutes of play, but they could not finish in the same manner.

The first half of the game was finished in favor of the Warriors as they had a one point lead with a score of 43 – 42. In the second half, Northern State was much more attacking than they were in the first half, which paid off and they got their desired victory.

In the first half, James Kelley collected a double-double in his first-ever Warrior start, notching 17 points and hauling in 11 rebounds. Kelley also scored one three-pointer when the Warriors’ forwards were struggling.

When Kelley was asked about his teammate’s failure in 3-shots and his success even after being a player who guards he answered, “We are in the gym every day so I mean if socks are falling we really just got to keep shooting them until they do just working on like every day in the gym, getting our reps up and the shots start falling eventually,” which is a sign of a promising player.

As a team, Winona State was 30-of-63 (47.6%) from the floor and hit 10-of-33 (30.3%) three-point attempts.  NSU held a slight edge on the boards at 33-31, while Winona State forced the Wolves into nine turnovers, compared to just six for the home side. The six foul shots for Winona State tied their second-lowest total of the year, while Northern State was awarded ten trips to the line, converting on nine. 

If looking at individual success, Connor Dillon, the main attacker, and Luke Martens, Captain of the Warriors both reached double-digits in scoring as well, with 20 and 13 points, respectively. Northern State was led by Jordan Belka with 21 points. Sam Masten had 8 rebounds which helped them to save a lot of points.

Eyes were also caught by a young prodigy of Winona State named Devon Fielding who scored 9 points in a short time. Even their team captain Martens admitted that he is a kind of a player who is just feeling in the role and will be a great player in the future.

In the upcoming week, Winona State is having two NSIC games at home. One against Augustana University (SD), which is on Feb. 3 at 5:30 p.m. and another against Wayne State College, which is on Feb. 4 at 3:30 p.m. This might be the last chance for Winona State to cheer up their home crowd and stay in the league.