La Crosse, Wis. - The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse men's basketball team, ranked eighth on D3hoops.com, dropped to 0-2 in the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) with a 56-53 loss to 10th-ranked UW-Oshkosh Saturday night in Mitchell Hall. The Eagles fall to 7-2 overall while the Titans improve to 8-1 overall and 2-0 in the WIAC. 

UW-Oshkosh led by as many as five points in the first half at 13-8 with 9:03 remaining after a pair of Levi Borchert free throws. Will Fuhrmann's layup and Seth Anderson's jumper for UWL cut the deficit to 13-12. After the Titans' Eric Peterson made it 15-12 with 7:30 left with a layup, the Eagles used a 6-0 run to take a 18-15 lead. Ethan Anderson and Seth Anderson each hit jumpers and Fuhrmann had a layup for UWL. 

Quinn Steckbauer hit a three-pointer for UW-Oshkosh to give the Titans a 23-20 advantage with 4:17 remaining. After Ethan Anderson's jumper cut it to 23-22, UW-Oshkosh scored the final five points to take a 28-22 halftime lead. 

UW-Oshkosh took a 36-35 lead with 13:18 remaining in the game on a Borchert layup, but four straight points by Sean Suchomel gave UWL a 39-36 leads with 11:44 left. Austin Westra's layup with 10:39 remaining gave the Eagles their largest lead of the game at 41-36.  The Titans responded with a 9-2 run to take a 45-43 lead with 6:40 left. Suchomel's jumper and Wyatt Cook's free throw gave the Eagles the lead back at 46-45, but Borchert's layup with 4:08 remaining gave the Titans a 47-46 advantage. UW-Oshkosh would not trail the rest of the game. 

Hunter Plamann's three-pointer gave UW-Oshkosh a 50-46 lead with 3:22 left. Suchomel cut it to 50-48 with a jumper with 3:11 remaining, but Plamann's layup with 2:58 left gave UW-Oshkosh a four-point lead. The teams combined to miss five consecutive shots from the field before Suchomel made one-of-two free throws with :23 left to cut the lead to 52-49.

After Plamann missed the front end of the one-and-one, Ethan Anderson's jumper cut it to 52-51 with :09 remaining. Cole Booth made both free throws with :07 left for a 54-51 margin and Suchomel hit two shots at the charity stripe with :04 remaining to cut the deficit to 54-53.  Jonah Rindfleisch was fouled with :03 remaining and hit both free throws for a 56-53 lead and Suchomel's half-court shot went off the rim at the buzzer. 

UWL shot 37.9% from the field Saturday, missing all 15 of its three-point attempts. It snaps a streak of 380 consecutive games with a three-point field goal for UWL.  The Eagles had not missed all of their three-point attempts since missing eight at UW-Platteville on December 6, 2006.  UWL had made at least one three-point field goal in 507 of its last 508 games entering Saturday's contest with UW-Oshkosh.
 

The Eagles shot 64.3% (nine-of-14) at the free throw line Saturday. Ethan Anderson and Suchomel led UWL with 14 points each while Seth Anderson finished with 12. Cook had a team-high eight rebounds. 

UW-Oshkosh shot 31.3% from the field, including 21.4% (six-of-28) from three-point range, and 83.3% (10-of-12) at the line. Borchert led the Titans with 15 points while Eric Peterson finished with 13, Eddie Muench 11 and Steckbauer 10. Mench totaled a game-high 10 rebounds. 

UWL returns to action Saturday, December 11 at 14th-ranked Trine University (Ind.) at noon.