APPLETON, Wis. — A scoring outburst midway through the second half Saturday put the Grinnell College men’s basketball team ahead, and the Pioneers pulled away for a 109-89 Midwest Conference win over Lawrence University at Alexander Gymnasium.
Kyle Parker paced Grinnell (5-6, 2-4 MWC) with 23 points, and Julian Marx added 21.
Jamie Nikitas poured in 34 points, his fourth 30-plus point game of the season, to lead Lawrence (5-5, 2-3). Nikitas went 12-of-17 from the floor and added six rebounds and a pair of steals.
Jeremy Stephani added 20 points for the Vikings, and Mitch Willer had 15 points on 6-for-7 shooting from the floor. Willer and Stephani added five assists apiece.
Lawrence’s Pete Winslow added nine points and seven rebounds in the first half, but he didn’t play in the second half due to injury.
Lawrence led by as many as nine points in the first half, and the Vikings held a 49-46 advantage at the half. The Vikings shot 61.3 percent (19-31) from the floor in the first half and held Grinnell’s attack from beyond the arc to just 29 percent (9-31).
The Vikings broke the sixth tie of the game with layups from Willer and Nikitas to take a 73-69 advantage with 12:38 left in the game. Grinnell then scored the game’s next 11 points, as Marx, Parker and Jacob Ekstrand all hit 3-pointers, to take an 80-73 lead with 10:16 left.
Nikitas stopped the run with a layup, but that’s as close as Lawrence would get. Matt Jasaitis countered with a 3-pointer for Grinnell for an 83-75 edge. The Pioneers would push the lead to as many as 13 points in the next few minutes.
Grinnell went 13-for-27 (48.1 percent) from beyond the arc in the second half. Lawrence shot just 44.1 percent from the floor in the final 20 minutes.
Lawrence did trim the lead 98-89 on Stephani’s layup with 2:37 left, but Parker hit another 3-pointer for Grinnell. The Pioneers then went 8-for-8 from the foul line in the final 1:43 to seal the victory.