The Central College women’s basketball team nabbed an elusive victory at Luther College Wednesday night 76-69, and the Dutch men rocketed to a 37-15 first-half lead and held off a second-half comeback from the Norse to complete the sweep with an 80-68 road win. 

The Central women’s basketball team’s victory was their first at Decorah since 2014, and only their second in the last 22 trips there, dating back to 2001. Guard Abby Johnson rained in five 3-pointers en route to a career-high 26 points for the Dutch (9-8 overall, 3-5 American Rivers), while center Allison Van Gorp added 13 points. Central trailed by as many as eight points in the second quarter but closed the half with a 16-5 burst to lead 38-35 at the break. Luther regained command in the third quarter and was up 61-53 with 6:55 left in the contest, but Johnson delivered eight consecutive points to trigger a 10-0 run for a 63-61 Central lead. Luther entered the game as the top rebounding team in the conference, but Central held a 48-29 advantage on the night. 

The Dutch men led wire-to-wire in improving to 11-6 overall and 5-3 in American Rivers Conference play. Central was up 43-24 at intermission but saw Luther pull as close as 66-64 with 5:16 left in the game. The Dutch used a 7-2 burst to calm the waters and pull away for the win. Despite knocking down just three 3-pointers on 17 tries, Central rarely misfired inside the arc, connecting on 74.3% of its other shots and shooting 58.9% overall for the game. It was a multi-pronged assault with forward Kole Tupa and center Joshua Van Gorp each scoring 18 points while guard Kaleb Brand added 17.

Central returns home Saturday for an American Rivers Conference doubleheader against Wartburg College to start the second round of the conference slate. The doubleheader at P.H. Kuyper Gymnasium begins with the women’s game at 2 pm, and can be heard live on 92.1 KRLS.