Moorhead State shot 58 percent in Friday night’s game, which hurt the Wildcats in an 86-65 loss to the sixth-ranked and conference-leading Dragons (25-1).

The Wildcats started the night off with Patrick Kurth scoring the first three points with a lay-up and free throw.

“I thought that we played just fine. We were well prepared for them and had a solid game plan going in. We just hit a dry spell that we struggled to bounce back from,” assistant coach Amry Shelby said.

From there, the Dragons took the lead until 12:43, when Joel Heesch made a layup to tie the score 13-13. Soon after, the Wildcats fell behind only to come back and tie the score again 20-20 with a basket by Jordan Cornellius.

Moorhead made eight straight points to take the lead. As the two teams continued to battle, the Wildcats fell behind 42-30 at the end of the first half.

As the second half of the game unraveled, the Wildcats tried to play catch up but couldn’t quite get close enough to overcome Moorhead.

Wayne State got 16 points from turnovers, 31 from the paint and 12 off second chances.

In Saturday night’s game, the Wildcats had a strong beginning over Northern State only to end up losing 85-61.

“Obviously, it’s tough whenever you lose. I thought the guys fought hard and played well. Northern just made a couple of more plays than we did,” Shelby said.

The Wildcats led 10-5 early and tied the game three times. During the second half, Northern knocked down 11 shots for a 14-3 run. Kurth led the team with 16 points.

The Wildcats host Sioux Falls on Friday night at 8 p.m. and Southwest Minnesota State the following evening at 6 p.m. Saturday’s game is also Senior Night.

“We are playing two teams that we are very familiar with. We will prepare like we do for any other teams and we will go into both games this weekend fully expecting to come out with two wins,” Shelby said.

Northern State 85, Wayne State 61
Wayne State……………… 35 26-61
Northern State……….…. 41 44-85
WSC: Kurth 16, Nagy 15, Cornelius 7, Holdsworth 6, Esters 6, Jacks 4, VandeBerg 3, Heesch 2, Zumbrennen 2
NSC: Warwick 18, Peterka 14, Storrusten 11, Pollard 10, Decker 8, Bachand 8, White 5, Pankonin 5, Arvidson 3, Schreiber 3

Moorhead 86, Wayne State 65
Wayne State……………… 30 35-65
Moorhead….………………42 44-86
WSC: Jacks 21, Kurth 15, Heesch 10, Vandeberg 10, Cornelius 4, Burneika 3, Esters 2, Holdsworth 2, Ross 2
MSU: Riewer 18, Bingham 11, Williams 10, Songolo 9, Lien 9, Vaughan 9, Sevile 8, Holt 5, Nelson 4, Kretchman 3