New Ulm, MN - The Martin Luther College men's basketball team picked up a win in its final contest of the 2023-24 season by defeating Northland College 72-69 in the LSC gymnasium on Saturday afternoon.

In a game that honored Micah Kieselhorst and Paul Frick for senior day, the Knights played inspired ball for 40 minutes and came out on top over the Lumberjacks.

Northland came out swinging early on though and it was clear that the Lumberjacks were hungry to pick up their first win of the season. Northland's jumped out to a 17-9 lead, but the Knights quickly got into a rhythm offensively and made it 20-19 with 10:26 left in the first half.

The Lumberjacks would then take their biggest lead of the contest following a Damian Cejka 3-pointer (35-26), but the Knights gained the momentum back and ended the first half on an 11-0 run to even up the score 35-35 at intermission.

Ethan Kjenstad and Kieselhorst started the second half off with a bang and gave MLC a 51-42 lead with six minutes gone by. MLC maintained their lead thanks to Kieselhorst delivering in crunchtime with a 3-pointer that he made off of his own offensive board. 

However, the playmaking ability of Langston Flowers and Drew Lindberg, kept Northland alive and the Lumberjacks cut it to 65-64 with 3:57 remaining.

Flowers would hit a shot from deep to make it 70-69 in favor of MLC still, but the Lumberjacks were unable to come up with a defensive rebound on the Knights' next possession and had to settle for a pair of Thomas Balge free throws that made it 72-69. Northland missed a couple of chances to tie the game up after Flowers missed a perimeter shot, which led to the Knights stealing a full court heave away to walk out victorious.

Balge finished with 19 points, while Kieselhorst scored 17 points and grabbed eight boards. Kjenstad finished with 15 points and Frick completed his MLC career with six rebounds and more of the same energy that he brought throughout his time as a Knight.

As a team, MLC shot 40 percent from the field (24-for-60) and both teams did their damage in the paint mostly with each school scoring 34 points in the lane.

MLC went 5-20 overall and 3-11 in conference play and showed improvements over the course of the season on both ends of the court. As of now, the Knights will bring back four starters for next season, as they look to build off of this win.