WINONA, Minn. -- The Augustana Vikings men's basketball team earned their first win of the season on Saturday, defeating the St. Mary's Cardinals by a final of 81-73 on the road.
After the Cardinals jumped out to a quick 7-3 lead, the Vikings reclaimed the lead and never trailed the rest of the way. Augie used a 17-4 run to cushion their first-half lead to as many as nine before pushing it to double figures later on. St. Mary's closed the first half with seven straight points to make it a 37-33 game after 20 minutes of action. The Vikings hit nearly 50 percent of their shots in the opening half while holding the home team to just 37.5 percent.
St. Mary's secured the first basket of the second, a three-pointer to trim the margin to just one point. Augustana responded with a big scoring outburst, using a 25-4 run over the next nine minutes to stretch the differential to its largest of the game at 22. Seven different Vikings tallied at least one basket over the span.
The Cardinals slowly started to chip away at their deficit, cutting it to 10 at the 2:24 mark. The two teams traded baskets to keep it around that margin, with St. Mary's only getting the score under 10 in the final seconds. Augie shot slightly below their first-half margin with a second-half showing of 46.8 percent, but hit 11-13 from the charity stripe to help maintain their lead down the stretch.
Tyler Knuth led the Vikings in scoring with 20 points on 9-12 shooting, while
Daniel Carr secured his second double-double in as many games this season with 18 points and 11 rebounds.
Matt Hanushewsky and
Matt Hawkins both saw success at the free throw line, ending their afternoon with 13 and 12 points, respectively. The Vikings out-rebounded the Cardinals 45-28.
"We played terrific half-court defense and absolutely dominated the rebounding," said head coach
Tom Jessee. "That is always a great recipe for a road win."
With the victory, Augustana improves to 1-1 on the season. The team will have a week between their next contest on Saturday, November 19 when they return home to host the Aurora Spartans. Start time is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. from inside the Carver Center.
