BOX SCORE
RIVER FORST, Ill. – The Benedictine University men's basketball team clinched the Northern Athletics Conference South Division title with a 70-67 win over Concordia University-Chicago on Thursday night in the Geiseman Gymnasium.
The Eagles (18-6, 13-3) held the Cougars (8-16, 6-10) to just 18 points in the first half on 6-for-30 from the field (20.0 percent). Benedictine took an early lead going up by eight with 11 minutes remaining. Both teams would trade buckets until a layup from
Terry Licht ignited the Eagle offense as they went on an 11-5 run to go up 31-18 at the half.
Buckets from
Jerrell Tribble and
Nate Green put the Eagles up by 13 to start the second half but the CUC offense caught fire with a jumper from Nat Pearson to go on a 17-4 run to take their first lead of the game with 12 minutes left.
With the crowd behind them, the Cougars took a three-point advantage with a layup from Charles Gordon. The lead would bounce back and forth for the next five minutes that included seven lead changes until a three-pointer from
Dario Jokic put BenU up by one and the Eagles never looked back, holding on to the 70-67 win and the NAC South title.
Four Eagles scored in double-figures including Licht with 18 points and five rebounds while Tribble scored 18 and grabbed nine rebounds. Green and Snelling each had 11 points with Snelling also collecting a game-high 18 rebounds, his 16th double-double of the year.
Benedictine was 23-for-53 from the floor (43.4 percent) and out-rebounded the Cougars 41-35. Concordia-Chicago was 25-for-62 from the field (40.3 percent) and forced 11 Eagle turnovers on six steals.
Gordon scored a game high 20 points for CUC and had eight rebounds.
Benedictine will host Concordia University-Wisconsin in the NAC Challenge game which will be on Saturday, February 19 at 4:15 p.m. in the Rice Center. For the full conference tournament schedule, visit the NAC website at
www.northernac.org.
