Men's Basketball Edged by Storm, 68-64

Junior Wes Nordquist (Adel, Iowa/ADM) scored a team-high 19 points and grabbed 11 rebounds for his third double-double of the season, but it wasn’t quite enough as Simpson College (5-9, 2-4 IIAC) hung on for the 68-64 victory inside of Siebens Fieldhouse on Wednesday night.

Nordquist finished 9-of-21 shooting and also added three assists and two blocks in 28 minutes.  He’s now just 10 rebounds shy of 500 in his career.  Senior Jeff Janssen (Fairmont, Minn./Fairmont) made three long range buckets and followed with 11 points, while also dishing out three assists.  He now has 123 career three-point buckets, moving him into a tie for 10^th on the program’s all-time list.  Sophomore Michael Kaufmann (Harlan, Iowa/Harlan) made a pair of three-pointers and turned in eight points to go along with five assists.  Doug Bissen (Earling, Iowa/Harlan) scored seven points and grabbed six rebounds, giving him 502 career boards for his career, making him just the 14^th player in program history to reach that milestone.

After shooting less than 29 percent in the first half, the Beavers heated up more in the second and shot better than 42 percent from the field.  The team also forced 16 turnovers, while committing only six.

Simpson broke an 11-11 tie with a 14-5 run to take a nine-point lead with under seven minutes left in the first half.  Zach Barragan, who scored 20 points for the Storm in the first half, nailed a three to put the Storm up 12 at 35-23 with just over two minutes to go before halftime.  Janssen buried a three-pointer with less than a minute to go, pulling the Beavers back into single digits heading into the locker room, 35-28.

Simpson scored the game’s first four points of the second half to go in front by 11 and continue to lead by that same margin five minutes in.  Nordquist then scored the game’s next six points to help spark an 8-0 run that saw BVU get back within three at 48-45.  A pair of Simpson free-throws then pushed the lead back up to six before Alex Savage (Des Moines, Iowa/Dowling Catholic) and Janssen each nailed long range buckets sandwiched around a Nordquist jumper, and the Beavers regained the lead at 53-51 nearing the eight minute mark.

Trent Fisher (Johnston, Iowa/Johnston) then bumped it up to four with a jumper of his own before the Storm, however, scored four straight of their own to square things up at 55-55 with just more than six minutes left in regulation.

The game was then tied three separate times over the next four minutes before Simpson grabbed the lead for good with 2:28 to play.  BVU trailed by just one with 1:26 to play, but a three-pointer from Simpson with just over a minute left, increased the advantage to four.  Nordquist answered with a jumper in the paint to make it a 66-64 game with 48 seconds left, and after Simpson turned it over on its ensuing possession, the Beavers couldn’t convert their attempt in the paint and Simpson made both free-throws with two seconds left to seal the win.

Barragan finished with 27 points, including 7-of-9 from downtown, to lead all scorers, while Cornelius Mosby, the only player in the IIAC averaging a double-double on the year, posted 15 points and 11 rebounds.

Buena Vista is now 6-8 overall this season (2-3 IIAC) and will now travel to Coe College (10-5, 4-2 IIAC) on Saturday afternoon for a 6:00pm contest.

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