For the UW-Superior men's basketball team, their game against UW-LaCrosse Wednesday night counted as a key encounter.

Not only were the Yellowjackets looking to halt a three-game losing streak, they were hoping to give themselves some valuable momentum heading into another big matchup this Saturday against top-ranked UW-Stevens Point.

Unfortunately for UW-Superior, the Eagles had other ideas.  And most of those ideas included knocking down the three-point shot.   

The Eagles connected on 10-of-14 from long range in the first half, including hitting on nine of their first 10, to take control and never look back during a 79-51 win over the Yellowjackets at Mitchell Hall.

The loss dropped the Yellowjackets to 4-9 overall and 1-3 in WIAC play while UW-LaCrosse upped their overall mark to 10-4 and went to 4-1 in league action.

The Yellowjackets scored the first two points of the game on a short jumper by Bronson Byrne (Chanhassen, Minn./Chaska) with 19:02 left in the opening half.

UW-LaCrosse came right back however, scoring the next six points to take a 6-2 lead on a three-pointer by Lucas Collom with 16:55 remaining on the clock.

The Eagles expanded their lead to 20-10 on another three-pointer, this one by Cale Zuiker, at the 11:12 mark of the opening stanza.

UW-LaCrosse continued to expand the lead behind sizzling three-point shooting, hitting three more three's and a jumper by Luke Tweed to expand the lead to 39-19 with 7:20 showing on the clock.

The Eagles would take their largest lead of the opening half 2:55 later as a free throw by Ryan Kruser upped the margin to 42-19 with 4:25 left helped propel UW-LaCrosse into a 49-26 cushion at the intermission.

For the half, the Eagles went 17-of-26 (65.4 percent) from the field while the Yellowjackets committed 16 turnovers in the opening 20 minutes of action.

In the second half, the Eagles built their lead to as large as 72-39 on a driving layup by Jared Staege with 6:23 remaining in regulation on the way to handing UW-Superior their fourth straight loss.

For the game, the Eagles shot 50.9 percent (27-of-53) from the field, went 10-of-20 from three-point range and forced 22 Yellowjacket turnovers.

UW-Superior meanwhile hit on just 39.6 percent of their shots (21-of-53) for the evening.

Offensively, the Yellowjackets were led by Aaron Corry (Lake Nebagamon, Wis./Northwestern) with 12 points.

The Eagles were paced by Trent Schmidt with a game-high 15 points.

The Yellowjackets and Pointers will get underway at 3 p.m. at Mertz Mortorelli Gymnasium on Saturday.