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ABERDEEN, S.D. – Northern State junior Geoffrey Firmin drilled just his second trey of the season from beyond 35 feet to lift the Wolves to a controversial 60-58 upset victory over tenth-ranked Winona State Tuesday night in a physical, back-and-forth Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference thriller.
 
Firmin's bucket, his second three-point swish of the night, did not come without speculation, however.  After WSU took a 1-point lead with 3.7 seconds left on the clock following a CJ Erickson free throw, the Wolves inbounded the ball with the length of the floor to go. 
 
Firmin, a junior point guard from Brussles, Belgium who was averaging 4.5 points per game and had not hit a three-pointer in six attempts before Tuesday's contest, dribbled past the half court line, stopped and drilled the shot, but nearly had the shot waved off because the game clock did not start properly on the in-bounds play.  After conferring, the officials allowed the bucket to stand and put 1.2 seconds back on the clock, leaving the Warriors with one chance at a last-second shot.
 
WSU's Xavier Humphrey, who tied the game at 57-all with 24 ticks on with a second-effort trey that brought the Warriors all the way back from a 6-point deficit with under a minute left to play, gathered up the ball near mid-court, but his heave at the buzzer fell short.
 
The ending capped a physical, back-and-forth battle that featured nine ties, eight lead changes, 42 combined fouls and 51 combined free throw attempts.  NSU had managed to build up a 6-point lead late in the game after senior Alex Thomas batted away an errant Warrior pass and laid it in at the other end.  Mitch White then buried his only two free throws of the night to make it 57-51 in favor of the Wolves with 53 seconds left to play.
 
The Warriors responded with a lay-up of their own to cut it to four points.  NSU then dribbled the ball past half court and appeared to call a timeout, but the officials whistled a jump ball instead with the possession arrow pointing in favor of Winona State.
 
Still leading by two possessions, NSU quickly saw the lead evaporate after Grant Johnson hit the front end of a two-shot free throw.  The junior missed the second shot, but WSU's CJ Erickson picked off the loose offensive rebound and fired it to Humphrey for the tie.
 
A missed shot and a foul later, and the Warriors were back at the free throw line taking the lead with 3.7 seconds left before the final sequence unfolded.
 
NSU held the high-scoring Warrior squad to a season-low 58 points – the first time WSU had been held to fewer than 60 points all season – and just one player in double figures, that being junior center Clayton Vette's 14 points.  Johnson was held to just eight points, well below his 14 points-per-game average, and went 0-for-3 from long range.
 
NSU, meanwhile, put all nine players to see the floor in the score book, three of whom reached double figures.  Junior Dustin Tetzlaff led all scorers with 16 points and eight rebounds.  Collin Pryor added 11 points and six boards, while Firmin had a season and career-high 10 points to go along with his two assists and one steal.
 
Tetzlaff, a 68 percent free throw shooter on the season, drained all six of his attempts from the line on Tuesday.
 
NSU also committed 21 turnovers in the game, but managed to give up just 16 points off those turnovers to the Warriors, who struggled to shoot the ball from all points of the floor.  As a team, the Warriors were just 20-for-54 (37.0 percent) from the floor, including 3-for-22 (13.6 percent) from beyond the arc and 15-for-26 (57.7 percent) from the free throw line.
 
NSU is off for a quick break before retaking the floor for a Saturday-Sunday double-dip.  The Wolves host Minnesota, Crookston on Saturday at 6 p.m. before taking on 19^th-ranked and undefeated MSU Moorhead on Sunday in a 4 p.m. match-up.