APPLETON, Wis. — The Lawrence University men’s basketball team rallied from seven points down in the final minutes Saturday, but Monmouth College recovered to post a 68-63 Midwest Conference victory at Alexander Gymnasium.
Will Jones scored 21 points and picked up four rebounds and four steals for Monmouth (8-4, 5-3 MWC). Reed Goodbred added 14 points and six rebounds for the Scots.
Jamie Nikitas, one of the nation’s leading scorers, was limited to 17 points and added a game-high eight rebounds to go with four assists to pace Lawrence (5-7, 2-5). Jeremy Stephani added 13 points for the Vikings, and Ben Peterson had 10 points, all in the first half.
Monmouth matched its biggest lead of the half when it went up 63-56 with 2:30 remaining. The Scots then let Lawrence back in the game with turnovers by Jones on two of their next three possessions. Lawrence converted that into four consecutive free throws, sandwiched around a foul shot by Paul Engo, to trim the margin to 64-60 with 1:06 remaining.
After a turnover by Engo on the next possession, Connor Weas buried a 3-pointer from the right wing to cut the lead to 64-63 with 50 seconds left. It was the only shot from outside the arc that Lawrence made in the second half as the Vikings went 1-for-10 from long distance after the break. Lawrence was 6-for-14 on 3-pointers in the first half.
Jones answered for Monmouth with a driving layup with 22 ticks left to push the lead back to 66-63. Nikitas then missed a layup and the offensive rebound popped out of his hands. Jones was there to grab it, and he then made two free throws with eight seconds left to seal the victory.
In a see-saw first half, Monmouth built a 16-9 lead before the Vikings got hot from long range. Peterson hit back-to-back 3-pointers and Stephani drained another trey to give Lawrence a 20-18 edge. The Vikings kept pouring it on with layups from Nikitas and Stephani and another 3-pointer from Stephani to grab a 27-19 lead. Overall, Lawrence put together a 18-3 run during a stretch of 4:44.
Monmouth answered right back with a 20-3 run of its own, capped by Matt Juhola’s layup with 3:31 left, to grab a 39-30 lead. Lawrence finished the half with a pair of Nikitas layups, sandwiched around a Weas 3-pointer, to cut the lead to 39-37 at the half.