APPLETON, Wis. — The 13th-ranked St. Norbert College men’s basketball team pulled away early in the second half Wednesday and kept Lawrence University at arm’s length the rest of the way in a 77-57 Midwest Conference victory at Alexander Gymnasium.
The Green Knights went on a 12-0 run to build a 17-point lead with 14:34 left in the game, and Lawrence was unable to get closer than 11 points the rest of the way.
Ben Bobinski went 5-for-8 from beyond the arc en route to a game-high 23 points for St. Norbert (13-3, 10-1 MWC). D.J. DeValk added 20 points, nine assists and seven rebounds, and Tim Marshall had 17 points.
Connor Weas and Ben Peterson both scored 11 points off the bench to lead the Vikings (7-8, 7-4). Leading scorer Jeremy Stephani was limited to just five shots, but hit four of them on his way to 10 points. Quinn Fisher also added 10 points off the bench for Lawrence.
The Green Knights were red-hot early and led 24-10 with 10:28 left in the opening half. Weas, Peterson, Fisher and Tyler Klug all hit 3-pointers as the Vikings went on a 16-7 run to trim the lead to 31-26 with 21 seconds left.
DeValk then airballed a 3-pointer in the final seconds, but Bobinski was there to grab it for the putback to give the Green Knights a 33-26 lead at the break.
The Vikings cut the lead to 36-31 on Mitch Willer’s layup off a great feed from Evan McLaughlin, but the Green Knights took over from there.
Bobinski hit back-to-back 3-pointers and followed with a jumper for a personal 8-0 run to give St. Norbert a 46-31 lead. DeValk, who started the decisive run with a layup, finished it with a jumper, and the Green Knights led 48-31.
Weas and Peterson countered with 3-pointers for Lawrence to cut the lead to 48-37. The Vikings managed to trim the margin to 11 points three more times, the last on Stephani’s 3-pointer with 9:49 left that made it 57-46.
St. Norbert pushed the lead all the way to 69-50 with 12-4 burst, and Lawrence never got closer than 17 points after that.