CLEVELAND, OH--- The Vikings and Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons, to no one's surprise went down to the wire Friday night, with CSU winning the game 79-74.
The Vikings and Mastodons started the game off very quickly, as the score was 30-24 within the first 12 minutes of play, after that things would slow down for maybe a few minutes, then the pace would quickly pick back up. Deante "Spider" Johnson would only have 2 pts in the first half, but he would get off to a quick start in the 2nd half opening up almost immediately with a slam, and then right after that he would get another quick basket.
The second half went the same as the first half, lots of back and forth action but what really got people to scoot up in their seats was the last 5 minutes or so of the game, PFW would go on a 15-4 run with 3 minutes left, the run would ultimately be stopped by Yahel Hill, who would finish the game with 10 points. In that run came multiple baskets from Mastodon guard Damian Chong Qui, who had a career night with a game leading 31 points, he was almost unstoppable during the game. Free throws and defense were key for CSU towards the end of the game, a field in which the Vikings have struggled on occasion, tonight they shot 90% from the charity stripe.
The Vikings all around had a great team effort to win the game, almost every Viking contributing in the scoring column, with 5 Vikings being in double figures, Tristan Enaruna, who was all over the court tonight leading the team with 19 points, both Tae Williams and Deshon Parker scoring 10, Drew Lowder scoring 16, and Yahel Hill off the bench with 10. These 2 teams were almost identical in just about every category except field goal percentage. In the 3pt percentage category, PFW shoot 34.5% from behind the arc, CSU? 37.5%. Rebounds were 31-29 in favor of CSU, turnovers were 13-11 with CSU turning it over 13 times.
The Vikings are back from the Wolstein Center Sunday afternoon hosting the IUPUI Jaguars at 3pm. You can hear the game on Fox Sports 1350 The Gambler, the free iHeartRadio app, or HERE