River Falls, Wis. - The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse men's basketball team fell 68-55 at sixth-ranked UW-River Falls Thursday night in Karges Center in the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) Championship (presented by Culver's) Semifinals.  The Eagles finish 14-13 on the season while the Falcons improve to 23-3 and advance to host UW-Oshkosh in the conference championship game Saturday, February 25. UW-Oshkosh earned a 75-61 home victory over UW-Whitewater in Thursday's other semifinal.

UWL was making its sixth appearance in the WIAC Semifinals in school history (2006, 2007, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2017), including third time in the last four seasons.  The Eagles drop to 1-3 all-time in the league tournament versus UW-River Falls. The Falcons earned a 72-61 win over the Eagles in the 2016 semifinals.

UW-River Falls, ranked sixth on D3hoops.com Top-25 Poll and the top-seed for the league tournament, raced out to an 11-3 lead with 11:58 left in the first half Thursday night.  The Falcons led 14-5 with 10:51 remaining after Booker Coplin's three-point field goal. The Eagles, this year's tournament's fifth-seed, used a 15-6 run to force a 20-20 tie with 4:16 left on Zach Schradle's jumper.  UW-River Falls led 24-23 at halftime.

UWL opened the second half on a 7-3 run to take a 30-27 advantage with 17:57 remaining after Ryan Kruser's three-pointer.  The contest was tied four times in the next 5:30, including 40-40 with 11:22 left on Coplin's two free throws. A Brennan Witt layup and Matthew Timlin three-pointer gave the Falcons a 45-40 lead.  The Eagles later took a 53-51 lead with 5:00 left on Schradle's layup, but the Falcons used a 17-2 run to end the game.  Devin Buckley and Garret Pearson hit back-to-back three-pointers to give UW-River Falls a 59-53 lead with 3:38 remaining.  UWL cut the deficit to 59-55 on a pair of Austin Fritz free throws with 3:16 left before UW-River Falls scored the final nine points of the game.

UWL shot 38.9% from the field, including 31.6% (six-of-19) from three-point range, and 58.3% (seven-of-12) at the free throw line.  Fritz led the Eagles with 12 points while Milton Cummings finished with 10 points off the bench. Schradle totaled nine points and 11 rebounds while Ben Meinholz and Kenny Finco each finished with seven points.

UW-River Falls shot 42.9% from the field, including 39.1% (nine-of-23) from three-point range, and 73.3% (11-of-15) at the line. Buckley and Pearson led the Falcons with 13 points each while Witt finished with 12 points and game-high 14 rebounds.