By Craig Phelps

Staff Writer

St. Louis, MO- Creighton lead the entire 60 minutes in their 60-57 victory over Northern Iowa in at the Scottrade Center on Friday afternoon.  The Bluejay’s Doug McDermott scored 16 points and Kenny Lawson led all scorers by throwing up 18 tallies on the board while shooting 80 percent from beyond the arc.

Creighton’s senior leader, Lawson, was quick to give his teammates credit for his excellent night of shooting.

“When you have a guy like Greg (Echenique) and Doug (McDermott) down in the paint, it frees up a lot of guys on the perimeter.  With those guys down there being really tough in the first half, it opened some things up for me.

McDermott had 16 points and 7 rebounds in the game, 9 of those points in the first half.  Echenique ended the afternoon with just two points, but grabbed boards in Creighton’s victory.

Northern Iowa had three players in double figures.  Jake Koch had 15 points, Kwadzo Ahelegbe had 14, and Anthony James threw up 10 points of his own.  Unfortunately for the Panthers though, Ahelegbe’s last shot of the game was just shy of sending the game into overtime.

Ahelegbe had a heavily defended look at a last second three point shot that bounced off the rim.  Ahelegbe went to the floor out of disgust after he missed the games last shot.

Creighton advances to play the tournament’s number one seed, Missouri State tomorrow 1:35pm tomorrow.  The game will be on MVC-TV.