Wolves Continue Home Dominance With 92-66 Win

LINCOLN, Neb. – Nebraska Wesleyan extended its conference regular season winning streak to 17 straight games and remained undefeated this year in American Rivers Conference play with a 92-66 victory over University of Dubuque on Saturday afternoon (Feb. 1) at Snyder Arena.

NWU, winners of 21 conference regular season home games, jumped out to an 8-0 lead and held the Spartans to just three points the first eight minutes of the game getting ahead 17-3.

The Prairie Wolves (18-2, 11-0) held a double digit lead the remainder of the game and got up by as many as 33 points late in the second half. Dubuque was able to pull within 11 points right before halftime and trailed 43-30 at the break.

In the second half, the two teams combined to score just 11 points in the first five minutes of the half. With the score 49-36, the Prairie Wolves went on a 9-2 run to get the lead up to 21 points with 11:32 to play.

Later in the half, the Prairie Wolves used a 21-4 run over a five minute stretch to get their largest lead of the game. During the streak, the Prairie Wolves got two 3-pointers from Jack Hiller and another from Peyton Priest before reserves played out the end of the game.

NWU continued their hot shooting to start the game, shooting 54.5 percent in the first half. During the 17-3 run to start the game, a Clay Reimers fast break dunk off a one-handed bounce pass from Nate Schimonitz capped the run and brought Snyder Arena fans to their feet.

For the first time during their eight game winning streak, the Prairie Wolves were held under 50 percent shooting. NWU, the nation’s leader in field goal percentage, ended the game at 49.3 percent overall making 10-28 from 3-point range. It marked the fourth straight game the Prairie Wolves hit at least 10 3-pointers.

Nate Schimonitz recorded his second straight double-double, and tied his career-high dishing out 12 assists for the second straight game. Schimonitz scored a game-high 27 points on 10-14 shooting overall and dished out the 12 assists with four rebounds and three steals.

He wasn’t the only NWU player to finish with a double-double as the Prairie Wolves had two players accomplish the feat for a second straight game. Jack Hiller scored 15 points and had a team-high 10 rebounds to earn his third double-double of the year. Clay Reimers just missed being a third Prairie Wolves with a double-double scoring 11 points with nine rebounds.

The top two scorers for Dubuque both came off the bench. After missing the past four games, Avery Butler returned to lead the Spartans with 17 points. Carter Stevens finished with 15 points.

Nebraska Wesleyan has another huge road test Wednesday night (Feb. 5) when the Prairie Wolves travel to Cedar Rapids, Iowa to face Coe College. Coe is in second place
in the league standings at 7-3. The Kohawks lost by just six points to the Prairie Wolves in Lincoln on Jan. 15. Wednesday night’s game can be heard on KFOR and kfornow.com, beginning around 7:15 p.m. The NWU women’s basketball team lost to Dubuque Saturday 73-69.