Humboldt State University Athletics

TAOYUAN CITY, Taiwan — Humboldt State put the peripheral excitement of its international trip aside Tuesday, focusing on the basketball court instead in a 87-81 win over the island’s top school, National Taiwan Normal University at the Kainan International Basketball Invitational.

The victory kept the Jacks unbeaten in their pool heading into Wednesday’s game against Corvinus University of Hungary. Another win would propel HSU into Thursday’s championship game.

Tuesday’s contest was a tight battle from the start against the team that was the unbeaten champion of Taiwan’s University Basketball Association last season. With six professional players on its roster, NTNU shored itself up further by adding BYU Hawaii standout “Jet” Chang for the summer tournament.

Humboldt State turned to its inside presence for the second straight game, and the tandem of Kevin Atkins and Brian Morris responded with 29 and 22 points, respectively. Morris posted his second straight double-double, pulling down 13 rebounds, and Atkins added 10 for the Jacks.

Humboldt led by as many as seven points on two occasions, but an NTNU flurry moved the home favorites ahead, 67-66 early in the fourth quarter. The Jacks responded with a three-pointer from Zac Tiedeman, who finished with 12 points and eight assists despite sitting out a large portion of the game with foul trouble and eventually fouling out.

Fouls stacked heavily in the favor of NTNU, who was whistled 13 times to 23 fouls called on the Lumberjacks. Players from the Jacks’ next opponent, Corvinus University, suffered a similar unbalance in their previous day’s loss to NTNU, and were the loudest supporters of the Lumberjacks during Tuesday’s game.

Also contributing for HSU were Ernie Spada, who added 11 points and five assists, and David Howard, who had eight points and seven rebounds off the bench. HSU played without the services of Kyle Baxter, who was held out to help heal an ankle sprain.