TAHLEQUAH – Northeastern State found their offensive grove in the final ten minutes to overwhelm Ecclesia College 73-46 on Saturday afternoon inside the NSU Event Center.

The NSU bench provided a good chunk of the offense with 50 points.  Marquise Harris had a double-double for the RiverHawks with 16 points and 11 boards, Jamir Andrews paced all scorers on the floor with 18 points.

Living outside of the theme of the day with NSU launching 44 attempts from the arc which was the most taken by a Northeastern State squad since setting a program record 51 at East Central on Feb. 14, 2009. However, it would take a bit for NSU to find their stroke from the arc, missing on their first 11 attempts.   At the end of the night the RiverHawks would land ten shots from downtown with Andrews catching fire with four in the second half.

"Ten for 44 from three, that's just not us, we are better than that," said head coach Mark Downey. "We've got to get these guys going making shots, I'll take a little bit of the blame for that.  We went really hard yesterday, we are trying to get better, and trying to take the next step.  We got a lot of guys hurt and we went hard, we were going to get better yesterday and not waste a day, and it showed a little bit."

"Marquise was a big lift for us tonight as he was the other night and that's good to see, it's another guy we can count on and get in the lineup."

Ecclesia who has played six games in the past eight days, including an overtime loss on the night prior hung around for most of the night and was only trailing 40-33 with 11:10 left in regulation.   

After trading possessions with the Royals the scoring picked up for the RiverHawks and an Andrews' trey opened up a 17-3 run to blow the contest open.  Ecclesia would only make a pair of buckets the rest of the way with NSU blowing up their lead to 29 points in the final seconds.

Northeastern State controlled the inside game with 34 points coming from the paint and they forced 27 Ecclesia turnovers which they scored 34 points off of.  The RiverHawks had 15 steals which was their highest total since last season at home on Dec. 6 against Dallas Baptist.

In rebounding, NSU controlled the glass with 47, Tighe Oberg had eight, and Gordon Hill added six.  Northeastern State as a team has had over 40 rebounds in the past three games, something that has not happened since late in the 2009-10 season.

From the field, the RiverHawks were 38.4-percent (28-73), and the Royals were 36.4-percent (16-44); Ecclesia (0-7) was led by Noah Banks who had 11 points on Saturday. 

Northeastern State (2-2) start a four game road trip starting with a non-conference contest on Tuesday, Nov. 21 at Oklahoma Baptist.