La Crosse, Wis. - The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse men's basketball team earned an 86-74 victory over Ripon College (Wis.) Saturday afternoon in Mitchell Hall. The Eagles, ranked 20th on this week's D3hoops.com Top-25 Poll, improve to 7-2 on the season. Ripon (Wis.) drops to 4-6 on the year.
The Red Hawks took a 9-6 lead on a Cade Tackmier three-pointer, but the Eagles took a 10-9 lead after a pair of
JJ Paider layups. Luke Meinholz' jumper with 14:06 left gave Ripon (Wis.) a 11-01 lead, but UWL's
Khris Green connected on a three-point field goal with 13:34 remaining to give the Eagles a 13-11 lead.
UWL would never trail the rest of the game.
JJ Paider tied his season-high with 22 points in Saturday's win.
Tackmier's layup with 12:44 left to the game at 13-13, but a 13-0 run gave the Eagles a 26-13 advantage. Green's layup with 12:19 remaining provided a 15-13 advantage followed by five straight points from
Torin Hannah.
Karter Thomas and
Tarek Abdel Kireem each added three-pointers to give UWL a 13-point lead.
A pair of Green free throws with 4:07 left in the first half gave UWL its largest lead of the game at 41-22. Ripon (Wis.) cut the lead to 46-34 with :21 remaining on a Kolby Williams layup, but Thomas' jumper at the buzzer gave UWL a 48-34 halftime lead.
UWL led, 66-48, with 10:41 left on a Hannah three-point field goal. The Eagles later took a 70-54 lead with 7:41 remaining on a pair of
Will Fuhrmann free throws when the Red Hawks went on a 8-0 run to cut the deficit to 70-62 on a Tackmier layup with 6:01 left. Tackmier's three-point field goal with 3:03 remaining cut it to 76-67, but Ripon (Wis.) could get no closer the rest of the game.
Layups from Fuhrmann and Hannah gave UWL a 80-67 lead. The Eagles went six-of-six at the free throw line in the final 1:01, including four from Paider.
UWL shot 51.7% from the field Saturday, including 31.8% (seven-of-22) from three-point range, and 73.1% (19-of-26) at the free throw line.
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Karter Thomas cored 10 points with three rebounds and three assists.
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Paider led four players in double figures with 22 points while tying for the team lead with six rebounds. He went 10-of-14 at the free throw line. Hannah scored 15 points with six rebounds off the bench, finishing six-of-seven from the field, including three-of-four from three-point range.
Dustin Derousseau added 11 points for the Eagles while Thomas totaled 10.
Ripon (Wis.) shot 49.1% from the field, including 44.4% (eight-of-18) from three-point range, and 71.4% (10-of-14) at the line.
Tackmier led the Red Hawks with 28 points, going five-of-nine from three-point range. He also had a team-high seven rebounds. Meinholz finished with 20 points, five rebounds and four assists while Williams added 11 points.
Kenny Finco, who served six seasons as an assistant coach at UWL, is in his second year as the head coach at Ripon (Wis.). He earned three letters at UWL, playing in 73 career games with 22 starts.
UWL returns to action Sunday, December 29 in the UW-Oshkosh Winter Classic playing Hamline University (Minn.) at 5 p.m.
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