La Crosse, Wis. - The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse men's basketball team, ranked 10th on this week's D3hoops.com Top-25 Poll, improved to 14-3 overall and 5-1 in the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) with a 77-56 victory over UW-River Falls Wednesday night in Mitchell Hall. The Eagles extended their winning streak to four with the victory.

 

The Falcons drop to 7-10 overall and 1-5 in the WIAC.
 
UWL has won nine of the last 12 meetings with UW-River Falls.
 
UW-River Falls scored the first six points of the game forcing a UWL timeout. The Falcons later led 11-7 on Zac Johnson's three-pointer, but the Eagles took their first lead at 12-11 on a Karter Thomas' three-pointer and Khris Green layup.
 
The game was tied 28-28 with 2:58 left in the first half when UWL's Griffin Ginder had a layup and dunk followed by Sam Grieger's jumper to give the Eagles a 34-28 lead. Johnson's layup cut it to 34-30, but Will Fuhrmann's layup with 1:11 remaining gave UWL a 36-30 halftime lead.
 

Grieger's layup and Grieger's three-point field goal to open the second half extended UWL's lead to 41-30. The Falcons cut the deficit to 43-33, but the Eagles went on a 10-2 run to take a 53-35 lead with 14:48 remaining on Julian Hodges' three-pointer.
 
Bennett Wright's three-pointer with 10:17 left for UW-River Falls completed an 11-0 run to cut the deficit to 53-46. UWL responded with an 11-1 run of its own to give the Eagles a 64-47 lead with 6:56 remaining on Grieger's jumper. The Eagles led by as many as 23 points at 77-54 with :27 left.
 
UWL shot 43.8% from the field Wednesday, including 29.2% (seven-of-24) from three-point range, and 77.8% (14-of-18) at the free throw line.
 
Grieger led the Eagles with 19 points, scoring 17 in the second half. He was seven-of-nine from the field, including hitting his only three-point field goal. Grieger went four-of-four at the line.
 
Dustin Derousseau finished with 15 points and team-high six steals while Thomas totaled 11 points. Ginder and JJ Paider each scored eight points with Paider finishing with a team-high nine rebounds.
 
UW-River Falls shot 38.9% from the field, including 20.0% (three-of-15) from three-point range, and 57.9% (11-of-19) at the line. 

 
Johnson led the Falcons with 15 points while Jack Leifker finished with 10 points and team-high seven rebounds. Micah Thompson also had seven rebounds.
 
UWL returns to action Saturday, January 25 at UW-Whitewater at 5 p.m.



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