Southeastern men’s head coach Kelly Green acknowledged it was going to be a learning process for his youth-laden squad and the Savage Storm definitely caught a few lessons in the season-opening GAC/Northern Sun Challenge at Bloomer Sullivan Arena.
The Savage Storm saw a second half lead slip away in the initial 78-76 loss to Minot State but fell in an early hole in the finale as they watched Minnesota Duluth pull away in the second half for an 8461 decision.
An outstanding first half against Minot State gave the Savage Storm a 40-37 cushion at the break as they shot 45 percent from the field, including six three pointers.
Ethan Wilkerson poured in nine points in the opening stanza as did Santiago Camacho Gomez, who pumped in three treys.
Southeastern built as much as an eight-point edge with 7:53 left in the game but cooled from the field while the Minnesota visitors began to heat up. A 12-4 scoring blitz knotted things at 68 with 4:46 remaining as the Savage Storm went cold down the stretch.
Green’s club sank just three of its final 10 field goal tries, including four misses on shots from beyond the three-point arc.
Scoring balance was tremendous for Southeastern even in the losing effort as four players tallied double figures with two others just shy of that mark.
Camacho Gomez notched 15 points, Wilkerson posted 14 points and seven rebounds, Saxon McWilliam tossed in 12 and Augusto Toledo scored 10. Tyler Long had nine points and Chandler Dickinson added eight.
Duluth raced out of the gate to a 14-5 advantage in Saturday’s finale before Southeastern stemmed the tide with a pair of Dickinson free throws and a Wilkerson three pointer. It was fairly even the remainder of the half as the visitors took a 3629 lead to the halftime locker room.
The visitors’ size and length proved to be too much in the second half however as Duluth scorched the nets for 58 percent shooting, most of which came in the paint as they out-rebounded the Savage Storm 41-28 for the game. Green’s unit had four double digit scorers once again but the most came from Dickinson, who tallied 14 points. Wilkerson pumped in 12 points with Camacho Gomez and Long ending with 11 apiece.
The Savage Storm begins a six-game road stand this week with a trip to San Antonio and won’t be back at Bloomer Sullivan Arena for action until a December 10 conference date with Northwestern.