APPLETON, Wis. -- The Lawrence University men's basketball team pulled away from Illinois College early and rolled to an 84-64 Midwest Conference victory Saturday at Alexander Gymnasium.
John Dekker scored a game-high 20 points to pace Lawrence (5-2, 2-0 MWC), which has won three straight. Ryan Kroeger had 19 points, with Doug Kadison and Chris Page adding 13 and 12 points, respectively. David Stewart led Illinois College (3-3, 0-2) with 18 points.
The Vikings jumped on Illinois College early, scoring the game's first eight points. The Blueboys trimmed the lead back to three, but Lawrence scored the next nine points, capped by Dustin Lee's 3-pointer, to take a 25-13 lead with 10:05 left in the first half.
The Blueboys cut the lead back to seven on Craig Bals' three-point play with 3:08 left in the first half, but Lawrence finished the first half on an 8-2 run. Kroeger's 3-pointer with six seconds left gave Lawrence a 48-34 lead at the half.
Illinois College scored the first five points of the second half to cut the lead to nine at 48-39, but that's as close as the Blueboys would get. Lawrence countered by scoring the next seven points, and the Vikings would go on to lead by as many as 22 points.
Lawrence doesn't play again until Dec. 17 when it travels to Cal Tech.