DULUTH, Minn. – Already the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference (UMAC) outright regular season champion after a win against Northland College on Friday night, the Northwestern College (Minn.) men's basketball team stayed the course to finish the regular season with an 84-66 victory over the College of St. Scholastica on Saturday afternoon. Lance Westberg (River Falls, Wis./River Falls) scored more than 20 points for the second straight game and the Eagles went 13-24 from the behind the three-point line to help NWC notch its 19th win of the season.

You wouldn't know that Northwestern had already won the conference trophy by the way the Eagles started out Saturday's game as NWC scored the first 10 points to lead 10-0 before four minutes had ticked off the clock. St. Scholastica showed that it wasn't going to go away on Senior Day though as the Saints came roaring back to come within one after Brett Tester's jumper made it a 12-11 game with 14:05 to play in the first half. Tester and Derek Steve's made baskets set the Eagles – and Westberg – off as the senior nailed three straight shots from downtown to put the NWC margin back to nine points. Northwestern's run continued as the Eagles built up an 18-point, 37-19, buffer down the stretch of the period before St. Scholastica cut it to 41-30 at halftime.

NWC's double digit lead remained, sometimes going as high as 19 points, until a 9-0 CSS spree quickly put the home team within reach at 60-57 with 9:05 still left on the clock. The run was enough to scare Northwestern into putting more points on the board, and that they did as back-to-back threes from Wade Chitwood (Grinnell, Iowa/Grinnell) and Tom Gisler (Stewartville, Minn./Stewartville) gave the Eagles a 14-point advantage at the 5:05 mark of the second half. Northwestern then made good on its free throws in the final minutes to finish with an 18-point victory at 84-66.

While the Eagles were just shy of 47 percent shooting from everywhere on the floor, NWC surely made its mark from behind the three-point arc with a 54.2 clip. While Westberg and Chitwood each had three makes from long range, it was Gisler's hot hand that could barely miss as the senior finished 5-of-6 from the same distance. In fitting fashion, the Eagles' four seniors were Northwestern's top scorers, with Chitwood scoring 19 points, Gisler 15 and Ellis Libby (Bloomington, Minn./Jefferson) nine.

As a team, Northwestern owned a 39-33 edge in rebounding while scoring 16 points off of 14 St. Scholastica turnovers.

Steve had a team-high 17 points for the Saints (9-16, 7-7) while Tester wrapped up his career with 13 points and seven rebounds in the Reif Gym.

All winning streaks and conference titles go out the window for the next week as the Eagles (19-6, 12-2) prepare for the UMAC Tournament with a bid to the NCAA Division III Tournament awaiting the champion. Northwestern, the UMAC postseason's top seed, will host the tournament's fourth seed, the University of MInnesota Morris, in a Wednesday semifinal that is scheduled to tip off at 7:30 p.m. The winner of Wednesday's game will advance to the tournament championship game on Saturday, which would be at Northwestern if the Eagles remained in contention.