Dillon Hogan/ Winonan
The final weekend of the regular season had the Winona State University men’s basketball team taking on Wayne State and Augustana. Both the games wrapping up the regular season for the Warriors took place in Winona. Winning both of these games propelled the Warriors to a winning record on the season.
Opening the weekend was the matchup against Wayne State. The Warrior offense secured the win with 82 points as Wayne State racked up 63.
The game started off as a close contest between the two teams as they traded baskets back and forth. It would take just over five minutes for Winona State to take a lead that they would not surrender for the rest of the first half.
Winona State built on this lead to take an 11-point lead into halftime, leading Wayne State 41-30. The Warrior’s shooting percentage in the first half was more than 70 percent on 17-24 shooting from the field.
The Warrior’s lead disappeared as Wayne State made their 17-4 comeback run in the second half, bringing the score 47-45.
The lead change was quick, however, as Winona State took back the lead with a pair of free throws and a layup. Responding to the Wayne State run, Winona State took back the game going on an 11-6 run to push the lead up to 60-53 with under nine minutes remaining.
Just a few minutes later the Warrior lead continued into double digits. The lead never slipped back to single digits, as Winona State extended the lead to as much as 19 by the end of the game. The 19-point lead resulted in the final score of 82-63 in favor of the Warriors.
Isaiah Gray led the way for Winona State in scoring with 20 points and a career-high eight assists. Kyle Bauman contributed 14 points and seven rebounds to the Warrior’s cause, along with 13 points from Tim Wagner, 12 points from Mohamed Ali Ben Ammar and 11 points from Conrad Masberg.
In the regular season and home finale, Winona State was paired up against No.2 ranked Augustana. Winning the game 75-72 sealed a winning record for the Warrior season. Winona State saw a game-high 23 points from Gray, 20 points from Wagner and 11 points off the bench from Nick Arenz.
The start of the first half saw Augustana jump ahead of Winona State in a back-and-forth half. A seven point lead was the largest Augustana would get as the Warriors tied the game at 18 with 10 minutes remaining in the half.
From this point Winona took the lead, also by as much as 7 points, before Augustana fought back to tie things up at 32 with 3 minutes left in the half. Augustana took a quick two-point lead before the Warriors erased it to take their own four-point lead into halftime, leading Augustana 38-34. In the first half the Warriors shot exactly 50 percent from the field going 15-30 on field goal attempts.
The second half saw the Warriors continue to build their lead on Augustana. The three-point shooting for the Warriors kept the Warrior lead as they hit 7 three pointers in the half, while only missing four attempts. The Warriors used their hot hand to extend their lead to as much as 13 points with just over five minutes remaining.
As quickly as the lead got bigger, Augustana cut back the lead. A run by Augustana lowered the Warrior lead to three with under a minute remaining. Two missed three pointers by Augustana gave the Warriors the ball and the game with the scores at 75-72.
The wins pushed the Warrior’s record to 14-12 on the season with an 11-11 record in the NSIC. The Warriors will next be in action in the NSIC tournament as the No. 5 seed playing against 4 seed Duluth on Wednesday, Feb. 25 at 7 p.m. in Duluth.
