Trailing by as many as 11 in the second half and for nearly 32 minutes straight, the University of Minnesota Duluth came from behind to up-end the University of Mary 63-60 at Romano Gymnasium on Friday night, clinching a first round home game in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference postseason tournament for the first time since the 2004 season.

UMD (14-13, 11-10 NSIC) will go for a season sweep of its next-nearest competitor tomorrow night when Minot State University comes to town, while securing a season split after knocking off a U-Mary (8-17, 6-15 NSIC) team that had won two in a row entering the weekend. t Upper Iowa University or Winona State University will travel to Romano Gym in Wednesday's first round tilt, depending on the result of their games on Saturday.

HIGHLIGHTS
• Senior center Brett Ervin scored the and-1 that gave the Bulldogs their first lead of the second half with 4:06 remaining and finished with 24 points and six rebounds, also knocking back a key block during UMD's comeback. Junior guard Pierre Newton grabbed a team-high 12 boards while adding 11 points, while junior forward Brendon Pineda had 11 points including a momentum-shifting slam dunk in the second half.
• UMD held junior big man Jaycob Velasco to just 10 points on 4-of-13 shooting after he punished UMD for 24 last time out against U-Mary. Senior forward Germain Decoste grabbed a double-double of his own with 18 points and a game-high 14 rebounds.
 

The Bulldogs shot just 32 percent in the opening half, trailing 30-23 heading into the locker room as Decoste led the way with 10 points at the break and the Marauders shot 46.7 percent. After a 16-point comeback last time out, UMD proved it did, in fact, have another such comeback in them. Tied 15-15 at the midpoint of the first half, Mary scored the next 11 points before Ervin stopped the bleeding with a tip-in with 4:53 to go. The Marauders opened the second half with a six-point run to claim their 11 point lead, but freshman guard Kyle Schalow ended a UMD drought from long distance. The Bulldogs began to chip away, tying the game at 46-all thanks to a 21-10 run as U-Mary gave the ball away seven times in the second half after just one turnover in the first frame.

Ervin answered with a pair of threes as the Marauders made good on free throw attempts, and Mary led by a pair when Ervin went in for a lay-up-and-foul that gave UMD its first lead of the half 55-54 with 4:06 remaining. The Bulldogs stretched their lead to five and made enough baskets down the stretch as the Marauders went 1-for-3 in the game's closing minute with Newton making good on a pair of free throws to clinch the game. The percentages would nearly reverse, UMD shooting 48 percent in the second half while U-Mary shot just 34.5 percent, including 1-for-7 from three-point range. The Bulldogs finished 4-for-9 from three in the half and 7-of-24 overall as both teams finished shooting 40 percent for the game.