WISCONSIN DELLS, Wis. — The UW-Stout men’s basketball team held on for a 74-71 nonconference victory over Lawrence University Friday at the JustAGame Field House.
Mitch Willer scored 18 points and added eight rebounds to lead three Vikings in double figures. Ben Peterson added 14 points and a game-high nine rebounds for Lawrence (2-6), and Jeremy Stephani picked up 11 points.
John Keefe led UW-Stout (8-2) with a game-high 19 points and eight rebounds.
Stout built its biggest lead of 10 points at 59-49 with 7:17 left but Lawrence responded. The Vikings went on a 10-2 run, capped by Abhishek Venkatesh’s 3-pointer, to trim the lead to 61-59 with 3:47 remaining.
The Vikings then got back-to-back 3-pointers from Peterson to tie the game at 65-65 with 2:21 left. Sam Ortmann countered with a 3-pointer for the Blue Devils for a 68-65 advantage.
Lawrence then missed a 3-pointer, committed an offensive foul and had a turnover as Stout stretched its lead to 72-65. The Vikings were forced to foul, but the Blue Devils made just two of their four free throws in the final 25 seconds.
Lawrence got a layups from Stephani, Pete Winslow and Willer to trim the lead to three before time ran out.
The Vikings hit 22-of-33 attempts (66.7 percent) of their two-point field goal attempts, but Lawrence went just 7-of-21 (33.3 percent) from beyond the arc. Stout won the game at the foul line by hitting 17-of-26 attempts while the Vikings were just 6-for-12.