ST. PAUL – The journey continues for the senior quartet of Wade Chitwood, Lance Westberg, Tom Gisler and Ellis Libby, who will lead the Northwestern College (Minn.) men's basketball team into the NCAA Division III Tournament for the third consecutive year after the Eagles defeated Bethany Lutheran College 79-73 in the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference (UMAC) Tournament championship game. Northwestern, who led by single digits early on, faced a 39-36 deficit at halftime, but a 50 percent shooting mark in the second half throttled the Eagles back into the lead for good.

NWC's first four makes on the night were rather fitting as Gisler, Chitwood, Libby and Westberg all drained three-pointers in the first four minutes to put the Purple and Gold up 12-7. Bethany came back to tie the score at 12 and again two more times until Matt Watnemo sparked a 7-0 Eagles run to give the home team a 23-16 buffer. Again, the Vikings rallied with seven straight points of their own to tie, showing that neither team was going down without a fight. Bethany's run continued to the point where Vikings head coach David Balza had his team up by six on Gavin Kroeler's free throw with 4:38 left to go in the period. Michael Carney hit his second trey of the half as the clock slid under one minute to put the Eagles within three points at 39-36 as time expired.

Northwestern started the second half strong, making two baskets and a free throw to turn their deficit into a two-point lead. After – you guessed it – another Vikings tie, the Eagles started to put on the heat to the extent that a pair of makes at the free throw line from Westberg gave the home team a double digit lead. But as quickly as that margin developed, Bethany went back to work and found itself even at 55-55 with 7:14 to play after Deon Wright hit a three-pointer. Even with Libby, its starting point guard, soon out of the game for good with five fouls, Northwestern responded with a 10-0 run that stuck. In a show of respect for his team, Balza pulled his seniors with 12 seconds left, and the Eagles had another UMAC Tournament title in hand.

Despite NWC's early makes from downtown, the Vikings were the better shooting team in the first half, making exactly 50 percent of their 26 attempts from the floor. But Northwestern matched that rate in the final 20 minutes, going 11-22 overall to finish the game at 23-52 (44.2 percent). The Eagles also went 50 percent from behind the three-point arc at 11-22 while draining 22 of 30 attempts at the charity stripe.

Westberg was named the tournament's most valuable player after the River Falls, Wis. native scored 23 points in Saturday's game that followed a 16-point performance in Wednesday's semifinal against the University of Minnesota Morris. Gisler added a double-double with 16 points and 10 rebounds while Chitwood had a 15-point performance, dishing out five assists in the process. Daniel Petkau had nine of Northwestern's 38 rebounds in the game.

For Bethany (12-14), Garrett Benson led his team with 17 points off the bench, going three of four from long range and 6-12 overall. NWC held the Vikings' top scorers in Gavin Kroehler and Derek Peterson to 10 and eight points, respectively.

Now 21-7 on the year, Northwestern will discover its NCAA Tournament schedule on Monday when the 64-team field is announced on NCAA.com at 11:30 a.m. CST. The Eagles have drawn the eventual national champion in each of the last two years, falling to St. Thomas (Minn.) in 2011 and Wis.-Whitewater in 2012 in games that both went down to the final minutes.