Coyote men fall to the Jackrabbits 72-76 for conference title

In their last game of the regular season, the Coyotes men faced a heartbreaking loss of 72-76 against one of their biggest rivals, the South Dakota State Jackrabbits.

The Coyotes will remain second in the conference while the Jackrabbits secured the first place in the Summit League.

SDSU took an early lead in the game and the Coyotes struggled to keep up. By the first timeout, the Jackrabbits had a small lead of 6-11, but were not deterred by USD’s defense and continued to make their shots.

Only six minutes into the game, the Jackrabbits increased their lead even more at 6-16, and for most of the first half, they kept a 10 point gap. The first half ended with a three-pointer by David Jenkins, leaving the score 30-40.

In the second half, both teams ramped up their defense. At first, USD began to fall behind, but they managed to chip away at the lead SDSU had, and with a little under nine minutes left, had tied the score 53-53.

For two minutes near the end USD had the lead, but ultimately SDSU came back with the help of two free throws made by Jenkins for the final score of 72-76.

Matt Mooney topped his season high for points in a game with 33 against SDSU, which had been 31 before. Tyler Peterson scored 12 and Trey Burch-Manning and Brandon Armstrong both put up 7 for the Coyotes.

Top scorers for the Jackrabbits were Mike Daum with 20 points followed by Lane Severyn with 14 and Reed Tellinghuisen with 13.