By Joe Malan

Staff Writer



Seven of the 13 players on the Northwest Oklahoma State University basketball team may be freshmen, but it was two seniors who led the Rangers to victory Tuesday night.

Brandon Brown led the Rangers with 20 points and Brandon Dixon scored 17 as NWOSU eked out an 85-84 overtime victory over College of the Ozarks at the Mabee Center.

Freshman forward Jonathan Freemyer also chipped in 13 points en route to victory.

It looked like it might be a blowout when NWOSU ran out to a 10-0 lead to open the game.

But College of the Ozarks would go on a 25-5 run through the middle of the first half to take the lead, 25-15.

Ozarks would hold the lead through the first half, and the score was 31-26 at halftime.

“We got away from our identity a little bit,” head coach Andrew Brown said. “When they made their run and made some stops we stopped ourselves. We started taking shots that are not us.’’

NWOSU took 34 shots the first half and made only nine of them. Ozarks took 28 shots in the first half and made 12.

The Rangers shot much better in the second half, though. They made 52.6 percent of their shots, compared to 41.7 percent by the Bobcats.

Brown told his team at halftime they could have easily been down 12 or 15 points, but the momentum they had at the end of the half kept them in the game.

“I told them you shouldn’t be down five when the other team has 14 turnovers, and I told them that it’s a 40-minute game,” he said. “Games aren’t won and lost in the first half.”

The difference in turnovers may be what kept NWOSU in the game. Ozarks had 25 turnovers in the game, compared to 15 for NWOSU. The Rangers scored 25 points off those 25 turnovers.

Ozarks was led by freshman guard Mike Wiebe, who scored 25 points. Junior Dustin Todd and senior Craig Campbell had 13 and 12 points, respectively.

The score was tied 70-70 at the end of regulation. Early in the five-minute overtime period, Bobcats forward Scott McElvain put his team in the lead 71-70 with a free throw.

The lead would go back and forth several times before Rangers freshman Marshall Bell hit a 3-point basket late in the extra period. Brown and sophomore Jackson Kajander would make two free throws each to ice the game.

Mike Wiebe banked a 3-pointer off the backboard as time expired but the Rangers had a four-point lead.

Despite the victory, Brown said there’s work to be done, especially on defense.

“We want to be a team that can go out and get defensive stops,” he said. “We really did not do that tonight. We didn’t do a very good job of getting key stops and critical stops.”