South Dakota State scored a season-high in points on Tuesday at Weber State, but they also surrendered a season-high , as the Wildcats held off a late Jackrabbits rally to avenge an early season loss to the Jackrabbits in Brookings with a 99-95 win.

The loss sends the Jackrabbits into the holiday with a 10-3 record, while the Big Sky Conference favorite Wildcats improve to 7-5.

 

Down 95-86 with under a minute to play, the Jacks used a Reed Tellinghuisen 3-pointer, followed by a Wildcat turnover and a Deondre Parks and-1 to cut the lead to 95-91 with 37 seconds left. Parks missed the foul shot, but got his own miss and put it back to cut the lead to 95-93 with 32 seconds left.

 

The Wildcats hit a pair of free throws on the other end to get the lead back to four points, then the Jacks got a tip-in from Tevin King to cut it back to 97-95, but did so with only five seconds left, and Weber State sank the free throws to push the lead to 99-95 with not enough time for the Jacks to keep the rally going.

 

The Jacks opened the game on a 9-2 run, with seven of those points coming from Tellinghuisen, who did not score on Saturday at FGCU, prompting a timeout from the Weber State bench.

 

SDSU held that lead until midway thought the half, when an 8-0 Weber State run put the Wildcats up 23-21 with a tick over 10 minutes left in the frame, and then added a 6-0 run later in the half to increase its lead to 30-25, a lead that would reach 38-30 at its peak.

 

SDSU bounced back with a 9-0 run to regain the lead at 39-38 on a Lane Severyn jumper in the lane with under two minutes left in the half, the first of two more lead changes before Weber State took a 44-42 lead into the locker room.

 

The Wildcats held the lead throughout the second half, and seemingly put the game away with an 11-2 run that put them up 80-67 with 7:12 remaining, only to see the Jacks respond with a 7-0 run that cut the lead to 80-74 with 5:29 left, but the Wildcats quickly got the lead back into double figures and never looked back.

 

Parks led the Jackrabbits with 23 points, while both Tellinghuisen and Keaton Moffitt set new career-high; Tellinghuisen with 22 and Moffitt with 15. Parks led the Jacks with eight rebounds and a career-high four steals, and both he and Moffitt led the Jacks with four assists.