The men's basketball team cruised to a 98-65 victory over the North Central University Rams Saturday night at the Karges Center in a game the Falcons completely dominated.

It was a shooting showcase for UWRF.  Aaron Anderson's (Stillwater, MN, Stillwater HS) three-pointer seven seconds into the game put the Falcons up 3-0, and they never looked back.  UWRF would build leads as bigs as 40 with 6:05 to go in the game, while holding the 4-6 Rams to a mere 35.8 percent from the field.  The Falcon defense also held North Central to a dismal 1-8 on three-pointers.  The Falcons meanwhile, shot a stellar 50 percent, connecting on 37-74.

UWRF would go into halftime leading 54-33 behind a 16-point first-half performance by Chris Palmer (Faribault, MN, St. Mary's University).  Palmer shot 6-10 from the field in the first half. He would finish with a game-leading 20 points.  He would be just shy of a double double with his game-leading nine rebounds.

Zach Peterson (Circle Pines, MN, Centennial HS) had a career-night performance.  He scored 15 points to aide the Falcons to their largest victory of the season, 33. His previous career-high was nine against Oshkosh on Jan. 29, 2011.  With the 33-point margin of victory, the Falcons eclipsed their previous best of 20, which came in a 72-52 victory against UW-Sout on Dec. 14.

The game featured all 17 players seeing action and 14 different scorers for the Falcons, with four Falcons scoring in double digits.  Led by Palmer's 20, he was followed by Peterson's 15, Shane Manor's (Altoona, WI, UW-Superior) 12 and Ollie White's (Minnetrista, MN, Mound-Westonka HS) 11.

Manor had a well-rounded game, as he was just shy of a triple double with 12 points, a game-leading eight assists and nine rebounds. He also led all players with a season's best four blocks. As a team, the Falcons had five total blocks. Manor's unselfishness led to a career-high eight assists.  His previous career-high was six against Platteville on Jan. 15, 2011.

The Falcons had complete control in all areas except for from the charity stripe.  UWRF would shoot 17-30 from behind the line for 56.7 percent.  However, that did not factor much in a game the Falcons never trailed. 

The Falcons also held a 54-35 rebounding advantage by getting nine rebounds apiece from Manor and Palmer.
UWRF also took better care of the ball while committing a season-low eight turnovers.  They forced 12 turnovers by the Rams.

With the win, the Falcons improve to 8-2 overall, and 8-0 all time against North Central. North Central falls to 4-6.

The Falcons are now 3-0 at Karges and are currently on a four-game winning streak heading into the holiday break.

The Falcons will return to action at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 29 as they take on Macalester College in St. Paul.
UWRF is 27-17 all time against the Scots.
 
"We took care of business tonight," said Falcon Coach Jeff Berkof.  "One of the good things is that we got everybody in the game and everybody had a chance to score.  We'll take some time off with finals coming up, but then we've got two big games at Macalester and Sioux Falls.  After that, we come back to play Stevens Point and Whitewater in the first week of January."

Box Score