GRINNELL, Iowa — The Grinnell College men’s basketball team pulled away midway through the second half and went on to a 90-74 Midwest Conference victory over Lawrence University on Saturday at Darby Gymnasium.
The Pioneers (10-3, 7-2 MWC) scored five consecutive points midway through the second half to grab a double-digit lead, and Lawrence (6-7, 4-4) was never able to get closer than 10 points after that.
Griffin Lentsch led Grinnell with 15 points, and Patrick Maher added 14.
Conor Klusendorf, Ryan DePouw and Chris Siebert had 18 points apiece for the Vikings. Klusendorf hit 9 of 10 shots from the floor, but the Vikings shot only 53.1 percent from the floor against Grinnell’s pressure defense.
It was DePouw’s layup that cut Grinnell’s lead to 67-59 with 10:28 remaining in the game. Lentsch countered with a 3-pointer for Grinnell and Garrett Nitz hit a pair of free throws to push the Grinnell lead to 72-59 with 8:32 remaining.
Lawrence got the deficit back to 74-64 on Davis DeWolfe’s layup with 6:58 left, but Grinnell then went on a 14-4 run to seal the victory.