Jacks complete weekend road sweep

Saturday, January 9

Cedar City, Utah

7:30 p.m. MT

South Dakota State University

Southern Utah

1/10/2010 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball

By: SDSU Sports Info

CEDAR CITY, Utah - The South Dakota State men's basketball team completed its first-ever sweep of a Summit League weekend on the road on Saturday, holding off a late Southern Utah charge to earn a 72-62 win at Centrum Arena.

The Jacks fourth straight overall win and fifth straight Summit League win boosts their overall record over the .500 mark to 9-8 and keeps them in sole possession of second place in the league standings with a 5-1 record. Southern Utah falls to 5-11 overall, 1-4 in league play.

"We got outrebounded tonight, we shot a horrible field goal percentage, but we won the basketball," said SDSU head coach Scott Nagy. "But I'll tell you why we did, it's because we defended, we held them to 39 percent (field goal percentage) and shooting 10-for-20 doesn't hurt from three point range."

Garrett Callahan made both of his attempts from beyond the three-point arc and went 6-of-10 from the field overall to lead all scorers with 19 points off the bench. Clint Sargent scored 16 points in the win, while Nate Wolters came off the bench to score 12 points for the second straight game.

Mark Engen played just 13 minutes in the game, but he tied a season-high with six points, a team-high nine rebounds and added a steal for good measure.

"Mark is really playing, and he's been a big key to our success in this run," said Nagy. "If you look at the games, he's played in four of them, and he's given us big minutes, the rebounds were big tonight and he was obviously a good match-up tonight with their big guys, so it really worked out well."

Davis Baker and Matt Hodsgon both scored 16 points to lead the Thunderbirds, Hodsgon added a game-high 11 rebounds for the games only double-double. Ryan Brimley added 10 points for SUU in the loss.

The teams exchanged the lead a couple of times in the first 10 minutes of the game, but a Callahan three-pointer midway through the first half put the Jacks up 18-16 and they never trailed again.

SDSU took a 32-22 lead into the lockerroom and quickly extended that lead to 20 points in the first six minutes of the second half. The Thunderbirds came back to cut the lead down to as many as four points with two minutes left.

The Southern Utah comeback did not faze Callahan though, as he buried a three-pointer from the left wing with 1:28 to play that salted away the Jackrabbit win.

"He was jumping up to shoot it and coach (Austin) Hanson was yelling 'no'," joked Nagy after the game. "Of the course the ball goes in, that was the ball game, that was the big shot, and I'm okay with him shooting them."

The Jackrabbits return to action on Friday, when they wrap-up their three game road swing in Fargo against North Dakota State in a game that can be seen live on KSFY-TV Sioux Falls, KVLY-TV Fargo and on Fox College Sports Central at 7 p.m.