Men’s Basketball Ends Season On A High Note, Defeats Carleton 67-58

BOX SCORE | PHOTO GALLERY

ST. PETER, Minn. – With its playoff hopes dashed and only pride and respect to play for, the Gustavus men’s basketball team went out on a high note, defeating Carleton 67-58 on Saturday, sending its six seniors off with a victory in their final game wearing the Black and Gold. The Gusties cap the season with a 12-13 overall record and 9-11 mark in the MIAC, ending the year in eighth place.

“That was a great way to finish the season,” Head Coach Mark Hanson said. “Not that this group of seniors is any different than any other group that I’ve had, but when you have six of them it adds to the emotion of it. They are great kids and I wish from a conference standings standpoint that we would’ve finished better, but this was a really nice way to finish. I thought the last half of the year they played really well and this was a great way to finish the season.”

Gustavus and Carleton traded the lead three times in the opening seven minutes of the game, resulting in a 10-7 Carleton advantage. The Knights then went on a 6-2 run to take their largest lead of the game at 16-9 with 8:03 on the clock, but the Gusties responded with a 13-2 run over the next three minutes and went into the locker room at halftime with a 26-24 lead.

Carleton opened the second frame by taking a 30-28 advantage 2:20 in, but that would be its last lead of the game as the Gusties took control. A three-pointer by Chad Poppen (Sr., St. Peter, Minn.) at the 17:12 mark gave the Gusties a lead they would bot relinquish the rest of the way. Over the next nine minutes, the Black and Gold outscored the Knights 21-7, highlighted by back-to-back threes by Chris Narum (Sr., Eagan, Minn.) to take a 52-37 lead at the 8:27 mark.

The coaching staff called upon the bench to make plays the rest of the way and it responded well by maintaining a double-digit lead for a majority of remaining time, resulting in a nine-point victory.

Brody Ziegler (Sr., Mankato, Minn.) ended his career in style, throwing down a dunk with 1:06 on the clock and then fouling out of the game via a technical.

“I didn’t plan for my last points to come that way, but off of a dunk on someone it felt pretty good,” Ziegler said. “The outcome didn’t really matter, all that matters is that we won and we had fun.”

Ziegler ended the game with 10 points and finishes his career with 903 points. Narum led the Gusties with 16 points on 5-of-9 shooting from the field, including 4-of-6 three-pointers. Peter Kruize (Jr., St. Peter, Minn.) also reached double figures with 10 points off the bench.

The Gusties shot 47.3 percent (26-55) from the floor, improving from 33.3 percent (10-30) in the first half to 64 percent (16-25) in the second.

“It’s certainly disappointing to not make the playoffs and you can debate the reasons for that,” Hanson said. “Injuries were a part of it, but we finished 7-3 and were very close to a 9-1 team in the second half of the season. I feel that indicates what kind of team we were, we just ran through some stuff early that wasn’t to our benefit.”