Virginia Beach, Va. - The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse men's basketball team improved to 2-0 on the season as it captured the TowneBank Tipoff Tournament championship with a 74-71 win at Virginia Wesleyan University Saturday afternoon. The game was played in TowneBank Arena.
The Eagles entered the game ranked seventh on the D3hoops.com Preseason Top-25 Poll while the Marlins were 14th.
Virginia Wesleyan took a 9-6 lead on Omari Deveaux's three-pointer. The Marlins took a 17-12 lead with 14:17 left in the first half on a pair of Deveaux free throws.
Sam Grieger's jumper and
Devon Fielding's three-point field goal tied the game for UWL.
After Deveaux's jumper gave Virginia Wesleyan a 19-17 lead, UWL went on a 10-0 run to take a 27-19 lead with 9:49 left.
Sam Ferge had a pair of three-pointers in the run. The Eagles took their largest lead of the first half at 37-26 with 2:17 remaining on a Ferge layup. The Marlins cut the halftime deficit to 37-30 on a pair of Miles Hancock free throws with 1:00 left.
Grieger's three-point field goal with 18:06 remaining gave UWL a 42-30 advantage. The Eagles took a 58-46 lead with 11:34 left on a
JJ Paider layup. The Marlins used a 11-2 run to cut the lead to 60-57 with 7:11 remaining after Amari Moorer's three-pointer.
Moore's layup with 2:41 left cut the lead to 65-63 when layups from Grieger and
Jacob Butler gave UWL a 69-63 lead with 1:47 remaining. Deveaux's three-pointer with :17 left cut it to 70-69, but Grieger's two free throws extended the lead to 72-69. Deveaux missed a three-pointer with :09 remaining and Grieger followed with two free throws with :07 left to make 74-69. Deveaux's layup with :03 remaining finished the scoring.
UWL shot 54.2% from the field Saturday, including 30.8% (four-of-13) from three-point range, and 72.0 (18-of-25) at the free throw line.
Grieger led the Eagles with 27 points while Paider finished with 23 points and nine rebounds. Grieger added a team-high four assists. Ferge totaled 14 points while Butler had a game-high 10 rebounds and two blocks.
Virginia Wesleyan shot 38.7% from the field, including 29.6 (eight-of-27) from three-point range, and 88.2% (15-of-17) at the line.
Deveaux led the Marlins with 31 points while Moorer finished with 23. Moorer finished with a team-high eight rebounds.
UWL returns to action Saturday, November 15 at North Park University (Ill.) at 6 p.m.
