Men's basketball holds off Beavers in 82-65 victory

Friday, January 10

Minot, ND

7:30 p.m.

St. Cloud State

9-6,6-3NSIC

Minot State University

6-9,0-9NSIC

St. Cloud St.

Minot St.

Oliver Ehrnvall connects with the basket in the Huskies 82-65 win over Minot State.

Photo by: Sean Arbaut

1/10/2020 9:15:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

MINOT, N.D. – Trevon Marshall (Evanston, Ill. / Evanston Township) really likes to score on Beavers.

Actually, the entire St. Cloud State University men's basketball team likes to score against Beavers.

After a disappointing, high scoring loss to the Bemidji State University Beavers last weekend, the Huskies were hoping their luck would fare better against the Minot State University Beavers Friday evening. It turns out, St. Cloud State plays some of its best basketball against those particular Beavers, as the team held off a furious second half rally from Minot State to claim an 82-65 victory in Minot, North Dakota.

Like the fur trappers of old, the Huskies had the Beavers number early and often in the opening half, as they led Minot State 45-30 after 20 minutes of play. Marshall once again held the hot hand for St. Cloud State, as he scored 17 of his team-leading 32 points in the first half of the game alone. A fastbreak dunk by Caleb Donaldson (Bloomington, Ill. / Bloomington) highlighted the high-scoring half, as the Huskies put up 45 points on .536 shooting, including an impressive .500 mark from beyond the arc.

Minot State was not about to go away quietly, as the home team slowly but surely chipped away at St. Cloud State's lead, eventually whittling it down to 56-48 at the 13 minute mark. That eight point margin was the closest the Beavers would come to nabbing the lead from the Huskies, as back-to-back baskets from Marshall allowed the team to regain a comfortable 11-point cushion with 10:15 remaining in regulation.

Once more Minot State would cut the lead to eight, but St. Cloud State's high-soaring offense and stingy defense proved to be too much in the final six minutes. In fact, a three by Ilya Tyrtyshnik (Kyiv, Ukraine / Kyiv Specialized School #49) and a lay up by Diamond Onwuka (Barcelona, Spain / Canarias Basketball Academy) put the Beavers to bed for good in the final minutes as it snuffed out any hope of a rally and helped secure an 82-65 St. Cloud State victory.

Marshall recorded his second consecutive 30+ point performance, as he led the team and the game with an impressive 32 points on 13-25 shooting from the floor with five assists to boot. Tyrtyschnik ended the game with 14 points, while Oliver Ehrnvall (Uppsala, Sweden / Celsiusskolan) and Anthony added 11 and 10 points respectively. Onwuka ended as the team's leading rebounder with eight in the game.

With the win, the Huskies overall record improves to 9-6 and the team is 6-3 in NSIC play. St. Cloud State will look for its seventh conference victory of the season on Saturday as the team takes on the University of Mary at 5:30 p.m. in Bismarck, North Dakota.