EUGENE, Ore. – After playing numerous close games this season with the elite teams in the Cascade Conference, Northwest Christian University finally broke through on Saturday, grabbing an 87-67 victory over Evergreen State. The win over the Geoducks is the first in school history for NCU against a team ranked in the NAIA's top-25.

The Beacons put on the pressure from the outset jumping ahead 6-0 while holding Evergreen scoreless for the first 2:15. A six-point lead turned to eight and with 7:38 to go in the half, Drew Laird hit a three-pointer to give the Beacons a 26-15 lead. Evergreen, however, fought back with a 10-0 run to climb within 26-25, and they hung around for the rest of the half as NCU took a 34-32 lead into the intermission.

Andrew Miller and Andrew Williams hit back-to-back baskets to open the second half and the Beacons went ahead by six. Evergreen climbed within three points on a Nate Menefee triple, but that was as close as the Geoducks would come. The Beacons put on the pressure throughout the half, shooting 67% from the field while holding ESC to just 37% in the frame, and NCU led by as many as 26 points before settling for an impressive 20-point margin of victory.

Head Coach Dave Lipp said, “We played great defensively tonight and we rebounded very well. We were just able to take them out of what they wanted to do and it was a complete team effort. We told the guys that if we just ran our plays on offense for 20 seconds then they would get tired of defending us and that is exactly what happened. We got a lot of easy baskets underneath because of it.”

Northwest Christian (14-11, 8-8) was led offensively by Dylan Perry (pictured), coming off the bench with game highs of 23 points, nine rebounds, five assists and four steals. Miller added 16 points on 7-for-9 shooting and Jordan Whittenburg hit three triples en route to 13 points. Cameron Marshall was also in double-figures with ten. On the night NCU shot 56% and out-rebounded the Geoducks, 42-35.

Evergreen State (15-8, 11-5 CCC) was led by Nick Moore with 23 points, adding five rebounds and five blocked shots. Menefee, who is averaging 24.3 points per game to lead the entire nation, scored just one field goal in the second half and finished with 16.

The Beacons will be back in action next weekend as they travel to play at Southern Oregon on Friday and #3 Oregon Tech on Saturday. The final road trip of the regular season begins with 7:30 tip-offs on both nights.