A night after struggling for 64 points at Romano Gym, the University of Minnesota Duluth reclaimed its home-court advantage with a comfortable 76-63 victory over Winona State University in its final interdivisional Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference match-up of the season on Saturday night.

UMD (12-12, 9-9 NSIC) split on the weekend to stay two games up for the fourth seed and home-court advantage in the NSIC North with four games to go, while Winona State (11-11, 8-10 NSIC) currently sits tied for fifth place in the South division and could be incontention for a return trip to Duluth in the first round of the playoffs if the standings remain the same down the final stretch.

HIGHLIGHTS
• Senior guard Reece Zoelle put together his strongest performance offensively of the season, netting a team-high 19 points off the bench on 8-of-12 shooting including 3-of-6 from three-point range. Four Bulldogs hit double figures scoring with Pierre Newton's 18 leading the starters. He went 6-of-8 from the floor, 3-of-4 from beyond the arc, and hauled in five rebounds. Junior forward Brendon Pineda grabbed seven boards to lead UMD.
• Junior forward Mark Blacklock led the Warrior offense, netting 18 points on 6-of-7 shooting. Six players had multiple rebounds for Winona State, with freshman forward Corey Jeffs leading the team with four.
 

The Bulldogs came out swinging in the first half, shooting 53.6 percent as they jumped out to a 10-point lead at 19-9 just 8:48 into the game. A three-pointer by Zoelle moments later gave UMD its largest lead of the first half at 13, while Winona got no closer than eight before the break. The Warriors, for their part, shot 48.3 percent in the opening frame, but the Bulldogs hit 6-of-13 threes compared to just 1-of-6 for WSU.

UMD quickly extended its lead out to 16 in the opening moments of the second half when Justin Byrd laid-in an and-one leading into the first media timeout. A lay-up by Newton with 13:02 remaining in the game put UMD back up by that mark, but then the Bulldogs went quiet, letting the Warriors back in thanks to a 12-0 run with nearly eight minutes of gametime off the clock. With just five seconds left on the shot clock and 5:21 remaining, UMD pitched the ball into Zoelle on an imbound, who made good with a buzzer-beater to finally break up the skid. Zoelle would follow with a three moments later to put UMD up seven, Ervin hit a pair of buckets in the closing minutes, and the Bulldogs made good on free throws to edge out Winona State by a 13-point final margin.

After hitting just a pair of threes a night before, UMD went 11-of-22 from beyond the arc and shot 52.9 percent on the night (27-of-51). UMD finished with 27 bench points, edging out 25 by the Warrior reserves. Winona State went just 2-of-13 from three-point range and shot 44.8 percent for the game.
 

The Bulldogs will head out on their final road trip of the regular season next weekend for rematches with Minnesota State University-Moorhead and Northern State University -- two teams ahead of UMD in the NSIC North Division standings. The action gets underway Friday night in Moorhead with an 8:00 p.m. tip-off, following the women's contest.