Southwest Minnesota State forward Jake Phipps (23) jumps up to attempt a block, forcing MSU Moorhead guard JaMir Price to pass out of his shot, during the second half of a mens basketball game in Marshall on Saturday night. The Dragons defeated the Mustangs in overtime, 79-77

MARSHALL — The Southwest Minnesota State mens basketball team came up short of the upset in overtime on Saturday night, falling 79-77 to MSU Moorhead on a pair of free throws in the waning seconds of the game. It was the third consecutive overtime game between the two teams with Moorhead taking all three meetings.

“Sometimes you can overanalyze a game like this,” SMSU head coach Brad Bigler said when asked about the last three games. “All you need is one possession. You need one more layup, you need one more 3, one more stop. Just have to continue to do what we do and have that confidence and belief in ourselves. It really hurt not having [SMSU starting point guard] Cliff [Cofield] out tonight from the legs standpoint, we’re just fatigued, but at the end of the day, I thought the other guys stepped up and did a good job for us.”

The Mustangs and Dragons entered overtime tied at 71. The Mustangs worked their way up to a 75-73 on a pair of Aeron Stevens free throws two minutes into the period but Jake Phipps fouled out just seconds later while contesting a shot in the paint, shifting the complexion of the game.

Eddie Beeninga hit a free throw to cut SMSU’s lead to a point before Jakob Braaten rebounded with a layup. That ended up being the Mustangs’ last points of the game. The next trip down the court, Dane Zimmer finished a layup through contact and hit the free throw to tie the game up at 77-77 with 1:41 to play.

SMSU had the ball with 30 seconds left but couldn’t get the shot to go. Zimmer and Mason Lund went up for the rebound at the same time, grabbing the ball nearly simultaneously, but Lund was called for a foul on the play and Zimmer knocked down the go-ahead free throws with six seconds to play. With time expiring, the Mustangs had to work quickly. Mekhi Shaw sprinted down the court and got off a good look at the hoop but the jumper wouldn’t fall. Jakob Braaten was there to grab the rebound but his putback attempt at the buzzer rimmed out and the Dragons held on for the win.

SMSU led by as many as six points in the second half after a pair of Phipps free throws gave SMSU a 59-53 lead with eight minutes to play. Still, the Dragons didn’t back down. Ja’Kair Sanchez cut the deficit in half with a 3-pointer on Moorhead’s next possession and made it a 1-point game with a pair of free throws on the possession after that. Moorhead continued to seize momentum with a pair of go-ahead free throws from Logan Kinsey and an emphatic fast-break dunk from Sanchez gave the Dragons a 62-59 lead with six minutes to play.

Neither team could gain any breathing room from there. Only once did Moorhead or SMSU seize a multi-possession lead for the rest of game, coming on a free throw by Jamir Price to give Moorhead a 65-61 advantage with four minutes to play. Price also hit a pair of free throws in the final minute of regulation to give the Dragons a 71-69 advantage but Dunwa Omot made a clutch layup to tie the game at 71-71 to force overtime.

Price and Sanchez were a difficult duo to contain on the night, finishing with 20 and 18 points respectively. Price also dished out a game-high five assists while Sanchez tied his teammates Zimmer and Jacob Beeninga with three assists. With starting point guard Cofield out for the Mustangs, Omot and Braaten led SMSU with three assists each.

Phipps looked like a man on a mission from the opening tip. After Logan Kinsey opened the game for Moorhead with a 3-pointer, Phipps brought the Mustangs within 1 with a nice inside hook shot and gave SMSU a lead with a 3-pointer from the top of the key off the feed from Omot. Despite the early exit, the senior center finished the night with a game-high 25 points on 10 of 13 shooting from the field and 2 of 3 shooting from the charity stripe. He also had three blocks on the night. Zimmer, who finished with one, was the only other player on either team to record a block in the game.

Moorhead had a notable size advantage and they did their best to use it in their favor. The Dragons outrebounded SMSU 41-34, including a 15-7 advantage on the offensive glass. Zimmer led the game with 12 total rebounds while Sanchez and Braaten each had nine for their respective teams. The performance marked Braaten’s third consecutive home game with exactly nine rebounds. Phipps and Stevens each also tallied seven boards on the night with Phipps accounting for three of the Mustangs’ seven offensive boards.

For the first 10 minutes of play, neither team led by more than one possession at a time. It wasn’t until a Phipps layup, a Shaw 3-pointer and an Omot jumper gave SMSU a 21-15 lead that either team saw some breathing room.

A layup and a dunk by Stevens on consecutive possessions gave SMSU the largest lead of the game, 31-22, with five minutes to play in the first half. Yet, the Dragons came storming back. A pair of Price free throws a Jacob Beeninga jumper and an Eddie Beeninga fastbreak layup made it a 31-28 game with 3:42 to play in the first half. Jacob Jennissen responded to a Braaten free throw with an electrifying dunk to bring the Dragons within two points but an Omot 3-pointer with two minutes to play gave SMSU a 35-30 lead at the halfway mark.

Both teams were in foul trouble for much of the game. In addition to Phipps fouling out for the Mustangs, Kinsey fouled out for Moorhead in regulation. Luedtke, Shaw, Zimmer and Sanchez each also had four fouls and the two teams combined for 43 fouls on the night.

“There’s no doubt when they were in foul trouble that we went at certain guys. We tried to create stress on them in those environments I thought we did a good job of it,” Bigler said. “It’s hard, you have Jake and Aeron both having great games, who do you give the ball to in those situations.”

With Phipps in foul trouble, Stevens, a true freshman, stepped up to the task on senior night. He finished as the game’s second-leading scorer with 22 points on 6 of 12 shooting from the field and hit 10 of his 15 free throw attempts.

Neither team scored in the final 1:58 of the first half and SMSU couldn’t get on the board until Kyle Luedtke hit a layup until 2:07 into the second half. During the Mustangs’ four-minute drought, Price hit a pair of layups — the first of which turned into an old-fashioned 3-pointer — to tie the game at 35-35. Luedtke responded to put SMSU back on top and Aeron Stevens hit a layup to give the Mustangs a 40-35 lead, but Jacob Beeninga and Dane Zimmer came back with 5 unanswered points in response to make it a tie game again.

The teams continued to fight back and forth until a Kinsey layup finally with 13:50 to play in regulation gave the Dragons their first lead since the first 10 minutes of the first half.

With the loss, SMSU finishes the regular season at 17-11 overall and 14-8 in the NSIC, good for fifth in the conference and one spot shy of a first-round bye in the NSIC tournament. They’ll now host one last home game against St. Cloud State for the first round of the tournament on Wednesday. The game will begin at 5:30 p.m. with the winner heading to Sioux Falls, S.D. over the weekend for the tournament quarterfinals.

“It’s a quick turnaround, but I don’t mind playing [the first round]. I think it keeps you in rhythm,” Bigler said. “And it’s another home game, so the guys [seniors] can maybe finish their careers with a win on Wednesday and that would be pretty cool.”

The downside of the extra game, however, is that it gives SMSU a tough decision in terms of Cofield’s recovery timeline. The senior guard has led SMSU in assists each of the last four years and is leading the NSIC in steals per game this season. Yet, the Mustangs tried to play Omot through injury earlier this year and it came with some challenges, so facing a similar issue in the postseason makes the decision even more difficult.