River Falls, Wis. - The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse men's basketball team opened Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) play with a 71-62 loss at UW-River Falls Wednesday night in Page Arena.
The Eagles drop to 6-6 overall while the Falcons, also playing their league opener, improve to 7-5.
The game was tied four times in the first half, including 11-11 with 13:21 left after UWL's
JJ Paider's layup. UW-River Falls scored the next four points on layups from Garret Honstrom and Zac Johnson to make it 15-11. The Falcons later took a 20-13 lead on Logan Jedwabyn's three-pointer with 10:36 remaining.
UWL scored seven straight points to tie the game at 20-20 on a
Jake Gross' three-pointer and
Austin Westra and
Tarek Abdel Kireem layups. The Eagles concluded a 14-3 run to take a 27-23 advantage with 4:24 left on Abdel Kireem's jumper. The Falcons responded with a 7-0 run of their own to take a 30-27 lead with 2:20 remaining on an Elijah Smith layup.
Torin Hannah's three-pointer with 2:11 left for UWL tied the game at 30-30.
Noah Hansen's three-pointer with 1:15 remaining gave UW-River Falls a 33-31 lead, but
Will Fuhrmann's pair of free throws with 1:02 left and Hannah three-point field goal with :10 remaining gave UWL a 36-33 halftime lead.
Gross gave UWL a 39-33 lead with a three-pointer to open the second half.
Austin Westra's jumper made it 41-36 with 18:01 left, but UW-River Falls used a 7-2 run to force a 43-43 tie with on a pair of Jack Leifker free throws. The contest was tied, 50-50, with 9:28 remaining on a Gross layup.
Paider's layup with 5:22 left gave UWL a 56-55 lead, but UW-River Falls went on a 8-0 run to take a 63-56 lead with 3:26 remaining on Johnson's layup. Westra's free throws with 3:02 left cut it to 63-58 when Hanson connected on a three-pointer to extend the Falcons' lead to 66-58 with 2:48 remaining. UWL could get no closer than six points the rest of the game.
UWL shot 34.5% from the field, including 21.7% (five-of-23) from three-point range, and 81.0% (17-of-21) at the free throw line. Gross, Abdel Kireem and
Dustin Derousseau led the Eagles with 11 points each. Gross had a team-high five rebounds and tied for the team lead with two assists with Fuhrmann and
Sam Grieger.
UW-River Falls shot 49.0% from the field on Wednesday, including 41.2% (seven-of-17) from three-point range, and 77.8% (14-of-18) at the line. Hanson led the Falcons with 18 points with Leifker finishing with 16 and Johnson 11. Leifker had a game-high eight rebounds and tied for the team lead with three assists with Johnson.
UWL returns to action Saturday, January 6 hosting UW-Stevens Point at 5 p.m.
