Phoenix, AZ- On Tuesday night, Arizona Christian lead wire-to-wire over visiting Northern New Mexico as the Firestorm won 79-61.  Junior Chris Sterling poured in a game high 19 points while pulling down a team high eight rebounds.  The Firestorm shot a perfect 17-17 from the free throw line as a team.

On the heels of both teams missing a three pointer on their first possessions, Senior Brandon Newman drained a three pointer from the right wing to hand ACU a 3-0 edge.  Ironically, that was the only basket Newman would make all game.  A fast break dunk by Senior Jackson Helms thanks to an assist from Senior Bobby Gray gave the Firestorm a 5-0 lead.

The Eagles (2-1) would close the gap to 7-6 but that turned out to be as close as NNMC would find themselves the rest of the night.

An 8-0 run with all the ACU scoring coming right around the rim moved Arizona Christian ahead 15-6.

Building as large as a 13 point lead with three minutes to play, it appeared the Firestorm (4-0) would cruise through the remainder of the half.  But the Eagles countered with a 9-0 run of their own to get back within four.  Junior Harshal Kolakkar, who subbed in just seconds before, drained a three pointer from the left side with about four seconds left to slow the NNMC momentum.

ACU held a 32-25 advantage after the first 20 minutes of play.  Senior Wolfgang Wood hit three of his five shots in the half coming off the bench to top everyone with eight points.  Wood ended the game with 11 points.

Less than three minutes into the second half, Northern New Mexico climbed back within three points on two different occasions with the last time coming at 36-33 score.

The Firestorm dialed up their defense and rattled off an impressive 23-0 run to take complete control of the game.  During that stretch, the ACU defense forced nine turnovers.

Sterling scored 13 of his points in the second half sparked by shooting 4-4 from the free throw line.  He concluded the evening 8-8 at the stripe.

Helms and Senior Collin Woods both scored an even 10 points in the game.  Helms was 5-7 from the field and Woods was 4-4 at line.

Although the Firestorm did not exactly sparkle from behind the three point line- hitting just 6 of 28 attempts (21.4%), the Eagles were dismissal at best from behind the two lines.  For the game, NNMC made just one of 16 attempts (6.3%) from behind the three point line but also converted just 6 of 17 shots from the free throw line (35.3%).

Head Coach Jeff Rutter stated, "I'm always pleased when we get the victory while having a poor shooting game.  Great free throw shooting and energy from our bench opened up the game for us.  I'm pleased with the development of the bench.  They started a pretty good defensive run that opened up the game.  Wolfgang played well, Collin did a good job of attacking the rim.  Chris did a nice job of getting to the rim.  Jackson played with a lot of energy defensively."

Focusing on areas that needed improvement, Coach Rutter added, "The offensive rebounds for Northern New Mexico stands out as an area that is obviously not good enough.  We were fortunate that didn't burn us and will be a focus for us in practice this week."

On Thursday, the Firestorm will leave for a trip to the Las Vegas area.  Come Friday afternoon, ACU will play Eastern Oregon at 5:00 pm (MT)/ 4:00 pm (PT).  On Saturday, Arizona Christian will face off with Montana State Northern at 1:00 pm (MT)/ 12:00 pm (PT).  Both games will be played at Liberty High School in Henderson, NV.