EAU CLAIRE, Wis.- The Warhawks men's basektball team finished the regular season with an 82-57 win on the road over UW-Eau Claire, Saturday night.

KJ Evans (Beloit/Beloit Memorial) and Eric Bryson (Elkhorn/Elkhorn) both scored 20 points and Reggie Hearn (Milwaukee/Marshall) added 17. Evans notched a double-double by adding 12 rebounds. Whitewater shot 54% from the field and was 7-17 from long range.

The Warhawks led from the begining, jumping out to an 11-4 lead in the opening five minutes of play, with Evans and Bryson combining to score nine points. Eau Claire battled back to 11-10 at the 19:54 mark, but the Blugolds never saw the lead.

Whitewater answered the Blugolds run with an 11-2 run of its own. Hearn had six points in the run to lead the way to a 22-13 lead with under 10 minutes to play in the opening period.

The Warhawks' lead hovered around nine points until the 6:43 mark when they ended the half on a 14-4 run, giving UW-W a 24-45 edge going into the intermission.

UW-W shot lights out in the first half, hitting 20-31 (64%) from the field and 5-9 from behind the arc. Bryson led all scorers with 15 points in the first half, hitting 6-9 and 3-5 from long range.

Evans opened the second half with a trey to give UW-W a 48-24 lead less than 20 second into the second half, but UW-EC answered with a 10-2 run to cut the Whitewater lead to 16, 48-32, with under 17 minutes to play.

Whitewater didn't let the Blugolds closer then that the remainder of the game. UW-W extended its lead to 20, 68-48, with just over 10 minutes left to play, and went on a 14-5 run to take its biggest lead of the game, 82-53, with less then three minutes left.

The Warhawks cooled off in the second half, shooting only 43% from the field. Steve Egan (Omro/Omro) came off the bench to score 10 points and gather five rebounds for UW-W. Eau Claire was 12-29 in the second half and only 1-8 from downtown.

The Warhawks end the regular season at 22-3 and 13-3 in conference play to earn the second seed in the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Championship. The Blugolds finish the year with 10-15 (3-13 WIAC).

UW-Whitewater earned a bye in the first round of the WIAC Championship and will host the highest remain seed on Friday, February 28 at 7:00 pm.