Following Wednesday's tough road performance at UW-Whitewater Wednesday, the Yellowjacket men's basketball team returned home to face UW- La Crosse. La Crosse has swept the season series from Superior the past few years, and today, they continued their run of victories. Despite a great team effort, La Crosse was just too much for the Yellowjackets, and the Eagles picked up the victory 62-59.
 
The first half was played evenly between both teams. Not only was the score even at halftime, 23-23, but the two teams were pretty much even in all other statistics. Also, the first half featured nine ties. The two teams played the first half back-and-forth, literally.
 
The second half was played evenly, too, except for the outcome of the score at the end. La Crosse took several "mini" leads, mostly between one and three points, but Superior always responded. La Crosse stretched their lead to four points with 12 minutes left in the second half, 37-33. But Superior cut the lead to one point with a three-pointer by Cole Minnich (Brooklyn Park, Minn./Champlin Park) with just over 10 minutes to play. Then, La Crosse built an eight-point lead with just under seven minutes remaining.

But, again, Superior responded.

Ty Ketz (Clayton, Wis./Clayton) drilled a three-pointer to cut it to five points. Zach Schradle (Clayton, Wis./Clayton) responded to two successful free-throws by La Crosse with a three-point play, making the layup and the free-throw. Superior trailed four with 5:47 remaining. La Crosse pushed the lead back to six points before Superior's Brian Lindblom (Spooner, Wis./Spooner) trimmed it down to three with a three-pointer. With just under a minute remaining and Superior down four, Schradle was able to get into the paint to score a much needed basket to cut the deficit to two points, 59-57. Superior committed a foul on the next possession, putting La Crosse at the line. After missing the first free-throw, Cale Zuiker made the second one to put La Crosse up three points. With under 20 seconds remaining, the Yellowjackets got a layup from Lindblom to help Superior close to within one point. Superior committed a foul on the inbounds-pass. Johnny Coenen made both free-throws. With just seconds remaining, Johnquez Brooks (North Las Vegas, Nev./Valley) attempted a game-tying three-pointer, but missed it.
 
Schradle led the way with 14 points and also had four rebounds and four assists. Lindblom finished with 12 points and Brooks had 10. Ketz had seven of the team's 17 assists.
 
Jared Staege led La Crosse with 20 points.
 
The loss drops the Yellowjackets to 1-5 in the WIAC, but there is still time to make up ground. The Yellowjackets will host UW-Platteville on Wednesday. Tip-off is scheduled for 7 p.m. at The Mertz