"We had a large contingency of Wildcats fans down here wearing the red and black," coach Scott Schumacher said. "It was great to see them down here representing the Wildcats. They did make a difference in the game."
James Livingston led the Wildcats with 17 points, and Maurice Foster added 15 in the win.
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Livingston hit his second shot from beyond the arc a few minutes later, and the Wildcats led 8-5.
Nick Walls, Foster and Jamie Mauch added buckets as NDSCS built a quick 10 point lead, 15-5.
Southwestern Illinois came back with a 5-0 run to narrow the gap, before Mauch and Livingston got the Wildcats' lead back up to nine.
Ridge McKeither got his first points of the day late in the first half, but it helped the Wildcats withstand another Blue Storm run and NDSCS led by eight points with six minutes left in the first half.
Chris Hines, who had 10 points for Southwestern Illinois in the first half, played strong down low and kept the game close, as the Wildcats went in leading 27-24 at the half.
"Hines is a very good player," Schumacher said. "He signed early to play at the University of Alabama. Even though he scored 21 points for the game, I think we did a good job of containing him and he shot under 50 percent for the game."
In the second half, Foster and Fred Savoie got the Wildcats going and pushed their lead to six points.
Southwestern Illinois stayed close, however, and tied the game at 32, as the Wildcats hit a stretch of poor shooting and turnovers.
At the 13 minute mark, the Blue Storm took the lead and built the lead to five points.
After Livingston pulled the Wildcats to within two points, the Blue Storm went on a small run to get back up by six.
But, Foster hit a free throw, Livingston scored a transition basket, Foster got a lay up to pull back to within one point, 47-46.
Southwestern Illinois had a costly turnover with a minute and a half left in the game, and Foster hit a shot to give the Wildcats the slim 50-49 lead.
As the game neared the conclusion, the Wildcats contained Hines and the rest of the Blue Storm for the win.
Southwestern Illinois had one final attempt with seven seconds remaining, but could not get a shot off before the clock expired.
"They did a lot of trapping so we really couldn't get our offense going," Schumacher said. "But our guys have been in the situation before where we've been down. They played hard and played until the buzzer. That's why we won the game."
The Wildcats (31-2) have their next game on Wednesday night against Salt Lake Community College (28-6), who were ranked 13th in the final poll.
The game starts at 8 p.m.
Wildcats stats:
Scoring:
Livingston 17
Foster 15
McKeither 6
Mauch 4
Savoie 4
Walls 2
Walker 2
Rebounds:
Livingston 10
Foster 7
Savoie 7
McKeither 4
Walls 3
Walker 2
Mauch 2
Kramer 1
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