Box Score SALT LAKE CITY – The Westminster College men's basketball team picked up an important 69-53 win over Lewis-Clark State College on Saturday night in the Behnken Field House.

Westminster is now 19-9 overall this season and they move into sole possession of third place in the Frontier Conference standings at 7-5 in league.  They trail first place Montana Western by two games and sit just one-half game behind MSU-Northern for second.  LCSC drops to 16-10 overall and 5-7 in the conference with the loss.

It was a weird first half for the Griffins on Saturday.  While they never trailed by more than three in the first 20 minutes, they twice let leads of eight and seven slip away before eventually trailing 29-27 at halftime.

The second half was a different story.  Westminster put together a 22-6 run over a nine minutes stretch that turned a 30-30 tie into a 52-36 advantage with 8:09 to play.  That run was capped with 10 straight points that was highlighted with a breakaway dunk from Alex Drecksel.

AJ Reilly had a strong night off the bench for the Griffins.  The senior scored a game-high 17 points on 6-for-10 shooting.  He had three makes from beyond the arc to go with two rebounds and two steals.  Drecksel came through with 14 points off the bench, helping the Griffins to a 36-17 advantage in bench scoring.  Jordan Hayter 10 of his own.

Westminster finished the game shooting 49.2% from the floor, but they went 18-of-32 (56.3%) after halftime on their way to 42 second half points.  The Griffins held a 37-32 rebounding advantage and scored 34 points in the paint to just 20 by LCSC.  The defense held the visitors to 39.6% shooting and only 28.1% after halftime.  They also scored 15 points from 11 LCSC turnovers.

The Griffins will look to take control of second place when they host MSU-Northern in the Behnken Field House on Thursday.  The game will begin at 7:30 p.m. and will also be available on Griffins TV.