by Josh Burkholder
NAMPA, Idaho – Northwest Nazarene men’s basketball earned a huge, hard-fought GNAC victory on Saturday, holding off Central Washington 56-46.
The Nighthawks improve to 14-8 overall on the season and 10-4 in GNAC play.
With the win, NNU moves into a tie for second place in the GNAC standings with Saint Martin’s. At this point, the Nighthawks hold the tiebreaker over SMU with their head-to-head win in Lacey back in November.
NNU jumped out to a 6-0 lead, but Central fought back to tie the game at 8-8 after a low-scoring opening eight minutes of action.
After some back-and-forth action, the Nighthawks would lead 15-14 at the 7:19 mark. CWU did not score over the next 6:37 as NNU put together a 14-0 run to go up 29-14. Nathan Perez and Ryzin Bergersen each had four over the run, with Bergersen punctuating it on an and-one three-pointer.
NNU went into halftime up 29-16. The Nighthawks started the second half with six points to take a nineteen-point lead, 35-16, at the 15:35 mark.
Central responded over the next five minutes, going on a 13-4 run to cut the NNU lead to 10 at 39-29 with 9:50 to play. NNU stopped the run temporarily, but back-to-back triples by CWU brought the deficit down to six, 46-40, with 4:40 remaining.
NNU was able to stop CWU from coming any closer, though. The two teams traded baskets over the next couple of minutes, with the Nighthawks still holding a six-point lead, 52-46, with 1:09 to play. NNU converted a few free throws from there to take the ten-point win.
Tru Allen led the Nighthawks with 18 points, four rebounds, and five steals. Bergersen added 13 points and three steals, while Aaron Murphy had nine points. Aaron and Gabe Murphy had eight rebounds apiece.
