La Crosse, Wis. – The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse men's basketball team, ranked 14th on this week's D3hoops.com Top-25 Poll, fell 58-57 to Calvin University (Mich.) Saturday afternoon in Mitchell Hall. The Eagles drop to 6-2 on the season while the Knights improve to 2-6.
UWL raced out to an 8-2 lead with 15:20 left in the first half on a
Karter Thomas layup, but Calvin (Mich.) responded with a 6-0 run to force a 8-8 tie with 12:19 remaining after four straight points from Ty Horky.
Dustin Derousseau finished with 10 points, four rebounds
and four steals.
The Eagles then went on a 12-2 run to take a 20-10 lead with 8:09 left on a Thomas layup.
Khris Green and
Dustin Derousseau each hit three-pointers in the run. Trailing 20-12, the Knights' Horky made three free throws to cut the lead to 20-15 with 6:30 left and Brady Ewing's three-point field goal cut it to 20-18 with 5:44 remaining.
UWL took a 27-24 halftime lead on a
Will Fuhrmann layup with :29 left.
Sam Grieger's layup with 14:26 remaining in the game gave UWL a 38-32 lead. The Eagles later took their largest lead of the second half at 50-41 with 8:21 left on
Tarek Abdel Kireem's three-point field goal. Uchenna Egekeze's jumper (7:59 left) and Trevin Winkle's three-pointer (7:33) cut the lead to 50-46.
Fuhrmann's three-pointer for UWL with 7:19 remaining extended the Eagles' lead to 53-46. Furhmann made one-of-two free throws with 4:52 left to later make it 54-49 before back-to-back layups by Calvin's (Mich.) Owen Varnado (4:23) and Daane Harvey (3:45) cut the deficit to 54-53.
Torin Hannah's three-pointer for the Eagles with 3:22 remaining made it 57-53, but UWL was held scoreless the rest of the game. Parker Swartz' layup with 1:16 left cut the lead to 57-55. After a pair of missed free throws by Derousseau with :55 remaining, Calvin (Mich.) missed three straight shots. Fuhrmann missed the front end of a one-and-one with :16 left. After a Knights' timeout with :08 remaining, Varnado hit the eventual game-winning three pointer with :02 left. Thomas missed a three-point shot just over half court at the buzzer.
UWL shot 34.5% from the field, including 40.0% (eight-of-20) from three-point range, and 45.0% (nine-of-20) at the line. The Eagles were three-of-11 at the line in the second half. UWL finished with 17 turnovers in the game.
Sam Grieger had a team-high 14 points, seven rebounds
and two blocks.
Grieger led the Eagles with 14 points and seven rebounds while Derousseau finished with 10 points, four rebounds and four steals. Fuhrmann totaled seven points and seven rebounds. Abdel Kireem added nine points off the bench, going three-of-four from three-point range, while adding five rebounds.
Calvin (Mich.) shot 41.1% from the field, including 22.7% (five-of-22) from three-point range, and 87.% (seven-of-eight) at the line. The Knights had 16 turnovers.
Varnado and Egekeze led the Knights with 12 points each while Varnado added a team-high seven rebounds. Egekeze had six rebounds, three assists, three blocks and two steals.
UWL returns to action Saturday, December 21 hosting Ripon College (Wis.) at 3 p.m.
