The Lawrence women recorded a clean sweep at Alexander Gym, beating Illinois College 67-59 last Friday and Monmouth College 72-67 last Saturday. The two victories kept the Vikings (7-7, 6-2 MWC) in third place in the conference, a half-game ahead of Carroll College. The top four teams make the conference tournament.
The Lawrence men split their games. The Vikings beat lost to Illinois College 77-68 on Friday but beat Monmouth 93-87 in overtime on Saturday. The split left the Vikings (6-8, 3-5) in seventh place in the conference standings, but Lawrence is just one-and-a-half games behind fourth-place Carroll.
The Lawrence women used a workmanlike effort to beat the Lady Blues (6-8, 4-5). Lawrence scored the final five points of the first half, capped by Joy Rogatzki's 3-pointer, to grab a 26-19 lead at the break.
Lawrence built that lead to 32-20 on Gina D'Amico's layup with 17 minutes, 7 seconds left in the game. The Lady Blues slowly chipped away and took a 41-40 lead on a pair of Adrienne Dickerson free throws with 10:01 left.
The Vikings took the lead back for good on Quinn Bohman's jumper with 9:29 left and slowly built the lead from there. Lawrence went on an 8-1 run to grab a 60-50 lead. Illinois College never got closer than five points after that.
Jenny Carney led a balanced attack with 14 points, and Bohman and Rogatzki added 11 points apiece.
The Vikings led Monmouth 35-24 at the half, but the Fighting Scots lived up to their nickname. Monmouth (7-7, 3-5) cut the lead to 46-43 with 11:51 left before the Vikings built the lead back to 66-51. Monmouth rallied again, trimming the lead to 67-65 before Mindy Reuden's basket with 1:06 left gave the Vikings some breathing room.
Dara Rakun led Lawrence with 23 points on 10-of-14 shooting from the field. Reuden added 11 points, and D'Amico had a game-high 8 rebounds.
Adam LaVoy scored 24 points against Illinois College (4-10, 4-5) but it wasn't enough for the Lawrence men. After playing a tight 30 minutes with the Blueboys, Illinois College went on an 11-4 run to lead 60-50 with 6:55 remaining.
LaVoy cut the lead to 64-60 with 4:04 left, but the Blueboys slowed pulled away to the win. LaVoy provided plenty of drama the following night against Monmouth. The junior guard from Oregon, Wis., hit a 3-pointer with 26 seconds left to tie the game at 81-81 and force overtime.
Lawrence scored the first five points of the overtime, with the help of a 3-pointer from Leverance, to lead 86-81. The Fighting Scots cut the lead to 89-87 but Mark Conard's layup with 59 seconds left helped seal the win. Grant Horton and Conard both added free throws in the final 39 seconds for the final margin.
LaVoy finished with a game-high 30 points. Conard added 20 points and 10 rebounds, and Leverance had 17 points. Mike Zimmerman chipped in 10 points.
Lawrence is back in action this weekend. Both the men and women play at Illinois College on Friday, January 28, and at Grinnell on Saturday, January 29.