La Crosse, Wis. - The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse men's basketball team earned a 84-68 home win over UW-Eau Claire Saturday night in Mitchell Hall. The Eagles improve to 10-7 overall and 4-2 in the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) while the Blugolds drop to 8-9 overall and 1-5 in the conference.
UWL raced out to a 9-0 lead on a layup from
JJ Paider, a pair of jumpers from
Will Fuhrmann and a three-point field goal from
Dustin Derousseau. The Eagles took their largest lead of the first half at 23-10 with 9:45 left on a
Khris Green layup.
Will Fuhrmann finished with 11 points on Saturday night.
Green's three-pointer with 5:14 remaining gave UWL a 28-16 lead, but UW-Eau Claire went on a 12-1 run to cut the lead to 29-28 with :08 left on a Michael Casper three-point field goal.
Will Fuhrmann's jumper at the first half buzzer gave UWL a 31-28 halftime advantage.
The Blugolds took their first lead of the game at 32-31 on Cade Hall's layup and Carter Huschka's layup with 16:00 remaining gave UW-Eau Claire a 39-36 lead. Trailing 43-42,
Griffin Ginder's layup with 13:20 left gave UWL a 44-43 lead. The Eagles would never trail the rest of the contest.
UWL led, 47-45, after Hall converted a pair of free throws for UW-Eau Claire. UWL went on a 9-0 run to take a 56-45 lead with 11:31 left on Green's three-point play. The Blugolds cut it to 56-47 with 11:16 remaining, but would get no closer than eight points the rest of the game.
Sam Grieger's three-point play provided a 59-47 lead. Caiden Lecce later scored six straight points for UW-Eau Claire to cut the lead to 65-57 with 6:31 left but back-to-back jumpers from Grieger and Derousseau extended UWL's lead to 69-57.
UWL shot 49.2% from the field on Saturday, including 58.6% in the second half. The Eagles shot 42.1% (eight-of-19) from three-point range for the game and 84.2% (16-of-19) at the free throw line.
Derousseau and Grieger led UWL with 18 points each while Green finished with 12 and Fuhrmann 11. Ginder added nine points. Paider finished with a game-high nine rebounds.
UW-Eau Claire shot 36.2% from the field, including 20.8% (five-of-24) from three-point range, and 76.5% (13-of-17) at the line. Hall led the Blugolds with 15 points. Huschka finished with 13 points and team-high six rebounds. Drew Maloney and Lecce each finished with 11 points.
UWL returns to action Wednesday, January 24 at 18th-ranked UW-Whitewater at 7p.m.
