Senior Tyler Pleiss (Omaha, Neb./Ralston) scored a career-high 15 points off the bench for BVU to help spark BVU to a 24-point second half lead, and the Beavers held off a late Central rally to finish off a perfect 3-0 week with an 85-80 home victory on Saturday night.
Pleiss finished the game shooting 4-of-6 from the floor and 7-of-9 at the free-throw line. Senior Wes Nordquist (Adel, Iowa/ADM) added his 12th double-double of the year, scoring 15 points and grabbing 12 rebounds, while Alex Savage (Des Moines, Iowa/Johnston) and Greg Sibenaller (Hornick, Iowa/Westwood) added 12 and 11 points, respectively.
BVU shot 60 percent from the field in the second half and finished the game at 54 percent overall. It also made 6-of-11 attempts from downtown.
The Dutch held an 18-16 lead midway through the first half before BVU finished the half on a 30-14 run. Pleiss scored six straight for the Beavers during the run to give them an eight-point advantage with five minutes to go.
A pair of Pleiss free-throws early in the second half made it 59-38 before back-to-back three-point buckets from junior Michael Kaufmann extended the advantage to 65-41 with under 14 minutes left.
BVU remained in front by 17 after a Nordquist bucket near the eight-minute mark, but Central kept creeping its way back in, cutting the deficit to single digits with three minutes to go. A jumper with 21 ticks left made it an 83-80 contest, but Savage and Ticknor each hit free-throws late for BVU to secure the win.
The Dutch made just 2-of-12 from downtown, despite connecting on 54 percent of their shots overall.
Branden Stubbs turned in a game-high 26 points to lead Central, which has not won inside of Siebens Fieldhouse with Coach VanHaaften leading the Beavers.
Buena Vista completes the season-sweep of the Dutch and improves to 14-5 overall (6-2 IIAC). It will look to make it 15 wins for the 16th time in 17 years under VanHaaften when it travels to Loras College (6-13, 1-7 IIAC) for an 8:00pm tip-off on Wednesday night.