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Warriors Reach Region Championship Game

Story by: Winona State Sports Information Office


Winona, MN -- Winona State University (34-1) put on a scoring flurish in the second half and posted an 80-67 win over the University of Nebraska-Omaha (25-7) in a semifinal game of the NCAA Division II North Central Region Tournament held at McCown Gymnasium.

The win puts the No. 3-ranked Warriors into the region championship for a third consecutive year and will give them the opportunity to win a third straight region title and berth in the Elite Eight. It will also marks the second time in three years that the Warriors will take on Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference foe Northern State University for the right to advance on to the Division II's championship round.

Winona State was seeded No. 1 coming into the tournament and Northern State had been given the No. 2 seed.

WSU and UNO put on a hard battle in the first half, with the Warriors barely holding on for a halftime lead of 26-25. Then in the second half WSU turned up the offensive gears, especially the three-point field goal shooting of Quincy Henderson and outscored the Mavericks 54-42.

Henderson scored 13 of his team-high 19 points with most of those coming on three, three-pointers. Henderson had connected for two other three-pointers in the opening period to finish the game with a five-for-nine effort from three-point range.

For the game the Warriors finished with five players in double figures. John Smith came up with 15 points, Jonte Flowers and David Johnson each tallied 13 points and Ben Ficher turned in a tremendous relief role by netting 12 points, grabbing four rebounds, dishing out two assists and coming up with one block shot and steal apiece.

The Warriors defense was at it again, as WSU forced the UNO Mavericks into 17 turnovers. The Warriors also had a 36-31 edge on the boards and came up with six blocked shots, led by Smith with three.

(Boxscore)

 

Last Modified: Sunday, March 16, 2008 23:33 by Michael Herzberg