Balanced scoring, energetic defense pushes Dixie State past HNU

Dixie State downs Hawks by 25

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ST. GEORGE, Utah – Robbie Nielson (Gresham, OR) missed one shot in the second half – a one-hand slam dunk attempt. He found redemption, twice, on the fast break.

The sophomore came off the bench to score a career-high 14 points and senior forward Dalton Groskreutz (Santa Clara, UT) paced four players in double figures as Dixie State cruised to a 90-65 win over Holy Names on Saturday at the Burns Arena.

"Robbie, I love bringing him off the bench," DSU head coach Jon Judkins said. "He has that fire and he brings so much energy. He was hard on himself after the missed dunk, but he gave us big spark and played very well."

Nielson had a pair of slam dunks as part of a 5-of-9 night form the floor. He added five rebounds, two assists, a blocked shot and a steal in 20 minutes.

Groskreutz led all game scorers with 17 points for the Red Storm (16-4, 10-4 Pacific West). Jordan Rex (Saint George, UT) had 11 points and DeQuan Thompson (Las Vegas, NV) added 10. All 12 uniformed players saw action and none of the starting five played more than 24 minutes against the Hawks (5-17, 4-10 PacWest).

Joshua Crum led Holy Names with 16 points, and Carl Dorn had 10. The Hawks have dropped three straight since beating Hawaii Pacific at home on Jan. 25.

The Red Storm built a 13-point halftime lead, 44-31, by closing out the opening 20 minutes with a 15-6 run. DSU put it away with a 28-12 spurt over the first 9:20 of the second half. As a team, Dixie State made 11-of-14 shots while a stifling defense held HNU to 5-of-17 from the floor over the same period. Kimball Payne (Alpine, UT) scored all seven of his points during the stretch.

"We worked on two things this week, our defense and playing together offensively by communicating," Judkins said. "Our goal was to keep them under 40 percent, we did. When we defend, we are a really good team. We were also finding the open guy and it led to 22 assists on open shots."

Dixie State connected on 30-of-53 shots for the game (56.6 percent), 5-of-11 from behind the 3-point arc (45.5 percent) and 25-of-34 from the stripe (73.5 percent). The Storm outrebounded HNU 38-28 and forced 14 turnovers.

The Hawks tried several offensive tactics to get back into the game, including a barrage of 3-point shots. Nineteen tries over the final 20 minutes only saw four shots fall hindering the Hawks in an attempt to cut as large as a 30-point lead for the home team.

Dixie State plays its next game Tuesday at home against BYU-Hawaii, tip time is set for 7:30 p.m.

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