FHSU Athletics
HAYS, Kan. - Fort Hays State knocked off No. 9 Southwest Minnesota State in the season opener for both teams on Saturday afternoon at Gross Memorial Coliseum. The Tigers, receiving votes in the preseason national rankings, used suffocating defense to hold the Mustangs at bay, winning 65-56. It was the first win at home over an NABC top-10 ranked team since the 2007-08 season when FHSU defeated a No. 8 Southwestern Oklahoma State squad.
Fort Hays State, the two-time defending national leader in scoring defense, played its usual brand of suffocating basketball, holding the Mustangs to just two points for about a 13-minute span in the first half. Southwest Minnesota State got out to a 15-6 lead at the 13:17 mark of the first half, but that's when the Tigers put their clamps in the Mustangs, holding them to just two points until a 3-point shot with three seconds remaining in the first half went through the net. In the 13:14 stretch on the clock, FHSU went on a 17-5 run to take a 23-20 lead into halftime.
The Tigers kept the pedal down in the second half, opening on a 9-0 run to push their lead to 12 points at 32-20. SMSU scored its first basket of the second half three and a half minutes in, but the Tigers kept their lead in double figures all the way until the 1:56 mark. A Kyle Grill jumper had the Tigers leading by 22 points with 6:55 to go, but the Mustangs were able to chip away at the lead a bit with a full-court press. A seven-point spread was as close as the Mustangs got with 52 seconds left, but a pair of Dan Mukuna free throws put the final margin back to nine.
Mukuna and Jahvari Martino led the Tigers, both with 17 points. Mukuna scored nine of his points at the free-throw line, while Martino was a smoking-hot 7-of-8 from the field and he hit his only two free-throw attempts. Grill added 15, including a thunderous posterizing dunk in the first half off a nice feed from Lucas Hammeke, who added 10 points. Mukuna pulled down a team-best seven rebounds, while Hammeke dished out four assists.
Mekhi Shaw led SMSU with 16 points, while Jakob Braaten and Micah Schlaak each had 12. Mason Lund pulled down 11 rebounds for the Mustangs.
The Tigers are right back at it on Sunday (Nov. 16) at 2 p.m. when they face an offensive-minded Concordia-St. Paul squad, which scored a 98-92 win over Nebraska-Kearney on Saturday in the second game of the day at Gross Memorial Coliseum.