Bearcat Men Split with Baptist, Central

The Northwest Missouri State men rounded out their long road stretch in January with a split with Southwest Baptist and Central. They beat the purple Bearcats 70-51, but went ice cold from the field and fell to conference leader Central Missouri State 60-50 Saturday afternoon. They are now two games back of Central and must fight their way back if they are to have any chance of making up ground. On the other hand, everyone is capable of beating everyone else in the league and Northwest finishes with six of its last nine regular season games at home.
Against Baptist, they shot 50% as they put together one of their most solid road wins of the year. Grant Cozad’s layup with 14:59 left put Northwest ahead 11-4. Dillon Starzl’s layup and 3-point play with 8:46 left got Northwest into double digits at 23-12. Baptist could not get any closer than 7 for the rest of the half and Matt Wallace’s layup with 16 seconds left gave Northwest its biggest lead of the game so far at 36-24.
Northwest had outscored Baptist 18-6 in the paint, making full use of their front line. They also outscored them 11-0 off turnovers and 17-3 in bench points.
The lead grew to 19 at 46-27 on Kyle Schlake’s jumper off a pass from DeAngelo Hailey. Rasha Brown-Peterson’s 3-pointer cut it to 46-33, but then Northwest went on a 10-1 run to go up 57-34 with 12:03 left as Alex Sullivan’s 3-pointer capped the run.
Baptist got back to within 67-51 with 5:07 left and had a chance to make it closer, but Northwest got a turnover and Bryston Williams’ 3-pointer made it 70-51 with 4:04 left and Northwest ran out the clock from there.
Dillon Starzl led the scoring with 16 points for Northwest. Alex Sullivan had 12 points, Bryston Williams had a season high 11, Grant Cozad came off the bench with 9, DeAngelo Hailey had 7, Kyle Schlake and Conner Crooker had 4 each, Lyle Harris had a 3-pointer, and Tyler Funk and Matt Wallace had 2. Ten different players for Northwest scored in the game. Should they continue that kind of balance, they will be very difficult to guard down the stretch.
But against Central, the Bearcats lost Dillon Starzl (knee) early in the game; whenever any player goes down, it changes the chemistry of the team and it takes time for the players to get back on the same page. Northwest’s post depth was hurt and they were outrebounded by Central in the game.
Nobody led by more than 4 the whole way until Grant Cozad’s layup with 17:11 left in the second half put Northwest up 33-28. But then Central came back and went on a 19-4 run over the next 10 minutes to make it 47-37.
Alex Sullivan hit Grant Cozad inside for a shot and hit a 3-pointer and DeAngelo Hailey hit another to bring Northwest back to within four at 49-45 with 6:22 left. The game stayed around four until 4:23 left, when Northwest could not buy a defensive board and Central took advantage with a 3-pointer that made it 54-47. Northwest missed two layup tries and then Central went up 56-47.