St. Bonifacius, Minn. — Entering Wednesday's matchup with Crown at the Wild Athletic Center, Northwestern had won six straight UMAC games with their last UMAC loss coming at the hands of the Storm. Crown broke that winning streak tonight as they were able to beat Northwestern for the second time this season. Crown was able to pull away late with a great effort defensively and with four different players scoring 15 or more points. Crown completed the home and away sweep of Northwestern, their first time achieving that feat.
Becoming a common theme, Trey Peace did something he hadn't done before in his Crown career, scoring 19 points to reset the career-high he matched two games ago. He led the Storm in scoring and also pulled down five boards and dished out five assists. Junior Josh Volness scored 18 points, making four three-pointers, pulled down three rebounds, and passed for two assists.
"It was good to get this win to start the second half of the conference schedule the right way. Doing so against a top team like Northwestern makes this win even better," said Volness. "Hopefully, we can take this momentum into a big game against North Central on Saturday. I credit my teammates for finding me for some good looks and fortunately I was able to knock a few down."
Post Austin VanDerHeyden and forward Tim Wendel were all over the court in the win. Both had 16 points and seven boards. Wendel had seven assists and VanDerHeyden two blocks as the Storm were able to find a way to beat the Eagles. The two also combined for five steals.
While the Eagles did shoot over 50% from the field, Crown solved their recent issues with opponents three-point shooting, holding the Northwestern team to only 23% while making 38% of their own. Crown also shot 80% from the free-throw line, including almost all of their late free throws as they were able to maintain their lead.
VanDerHeyden was on the cusp of making history scoring his 1,374th point and is only a point shy of tying James Brown to be Crown's all-time leading scorer. Crown's record improves to 4-5 in conference play, only a half game back from Northland in the five seed. The Crown men next have North Central coming to St. Bonifacius on Saturday, as they look to avenge their loss in Minneapolis earlier this year.
