In Thursday's non-league outing, the Northwestern Tigers (Maple, WI) basketball squad beat the host Sparta Spartans (Sparta, WI), by a margin of 81-66.

The Tigers (6-1) will now prepare for their outing against Ashland (Ashland, WI). The Oredockers go into the Heart O'North outing with a 3-5 record. In their last outing, Ashland was topped by Rhinelander (Rhinelander, WI), 85-46, in a non-league outing.

The Spartans now own a 3-8 record. They play next when they travel to Aquinas for a Mississippi Valley outing on Tuesday, January 3. Sparta will clash with a Blugolds squad coming off a 75-32 non-league loss to Oneida Nation (Oneida, WI). The Blugolds record now stands at 6-5.