Storm men win in comeback fashion over Wartburg

INDIANOLA, Iowa -- Kyle Wagner broke out of a scoring slump in a big way with 20 points to help the Simpson men's basketball team win 71-65 over Wartburg on Wednesday in comeback fashion.

Wagner hit double digits for the first time since netting 10 at Nebraska Wesleyan on Jan. 8 and hit the 20-point mark for the third time this season. Adam Reiter now has nine double-doubles after posting 16 points and 12 boards. Conor Riordan scored 15 and Ahmed Musa tied a season-high 10 points in the win.

At halftime, the Storm (9-8, 3-5 A-R-C) were down 43-31 for their largest deficit of the night. In the first 90 seconds of the second half, Musa scored four points and Riordan chipped in a bucket to trim the Knights' (7-10, 3-5 A-R-C) lead to 43-37. Wartburg stretched the lead back to 10, but a string of 12-straight points brought the Storm back out front.

The teams kept it neck-in-neck before the Knights put together five-straight points to go ahead at 65-62. Simpson came back with a 9-0 run to close out the conference thriller to snap a two-game losing skid over the last week.

In the first half, both squads maintained pace to place the contest at 8-8. Wartburg stayed within the perimeter to stretch the tilt to 21-12. The Storm looked poised for a run after nailing back-to-back triples to put the contest at 31-26, but the visitors capitalized on consecutive turnovers by the Simpson offense to stretch the lead back to 10.

Wartburg went into the second half on a 7-2 scoring spree to look to get back in the win column after dropping its last game in overtime fashion at Coe.

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Simpson will look to get revenge this Saturday at Dubuque in a 4 p.m. contest. The Spartans left Cowles Fieldhouse with a 77-68 victory over the Storm on Nov. 26.