Menomonie, Wis. - The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse men's basketball wrapped up its regular season with a 66-54 victory at UW-Stout Saturday afternoon in Johnson Fieldhouse. The Eagles improve to 17-8 overall and 10-4 in the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) while the Blue Devils drop to 6-19 overall and 0-14 in the conference.
It marks the fourth time (2012-13, 2013-14, 2015-16, 2018-19) in the last seven seasons UWL has won at least 10 conference games. The Eagles also earned their 17th win of the season for the first time since finishing 17-10 in 2013-14.
UWL is the second-seed for the WIAC Championships (Presented by Culver's) and will host a tournament semifinal Thursday, February 21 at 7 p.m.
UW-Stout took a 4-2 lead with 14:29 left in the first half on a Jon Ciriacks' free throw, but UWL scored six straight points to take an 8-4 lead. Ciriacks' jumper and Luke Geiger's layup forced an 8-8 tie with 12:03 remaining.
Ethan Anderson converted three free throws with 11:58 left to give UWL an 11-8 advantage and the Eagles would never trail the rest of the game.
UWL took its largest lead of the first half at 27-16 with :28 left on a
Taulvish McCray three-point field goal. The Eagles maintained their 27-16 lead at halftime.
The Blue Devils opened the second half on a 10-2 run to cut the Eagles' lead to 29-26 with 15:53 left on Geiger's three-pointer. UWL responded with a 7-0 run to take a 36-26 advantage with Anderson scoring five of the seven points. UW-Stout later cut the deficit to 44-37 with 10:07 remaining when UWL used a 9-0 run to lead 53-37. The Blue Devils could get no closer than 11 points the rest of the game.
UWL shot 45.7% from the field, including 25.0% (three-of-12) from three-point range, and 77.8% (21-of-27) at the free throw line. Anderson led four players in double figures with 15 points while
Brendon Manning added 14. McCray finished with 11 points and
Jack Kortes 10. Anderson, Manning and
Ben Meinholz each had five rebounds.
UW-Stout shot 33.9% from the field, including 20.7% (six-of-29) from three-point range, and 46.2% (six-of-13) at the line. Geiger led the Blue Devils with 15 points while Zach Dahl added 11. Geiger had a team-high five rebounds.
UWL returns to action Thursday, February 21 hosting a WIAC Championship Semifinal at 7 p.m.
