RIPON, Wis. - Ripon's men's basketball team defeated Knox College 89-83 Saturday afternoon in the final game of the regular season to extend their conference-best win streak to nine games. The Red Hawks, who haven't lost in over a month, shot 61 percent (33-54) from the field, including 72 percent (18-25) in the second half, while also shooting 47 percent (8-17) from 3-point range.

Ripon (18-7, 14-4 MWC) wasted no time, scoring on a Trent Jones layup just three seconds into the contest. The two teams battled back and forth for the next few minutes, until Ripon took the lead on a Jaylen Mahone jumper with 14 minutes left in the half. That was the beginning of a 13-0 run that put Ripon up by 12 mid-way through the period. Knox (9-16, 5-13 MWC) scratched their way back into the game however, grabbing the lead on a Zach Lowe 3-pointer with under one minute left before halftime. Jones would get that lead back for the Red Hawks on the ensuing possession, as he connected on a jumper to give Ripon a 39-38 halftime advantage.

The Red Hawks led for the remainder of the game, although Knox climbed from an 11-point deficit to cut Ripon's lead to one on a layup by Ikenna Ozor with four minutes remaining. Ripon would make the plays they needed to make down the stretch however to pull out the victory, while making seven of eight free throws in the final three minutes.

Jones led Ripon with 22 points on 11-of-18 shooting, to go along with five rebounds and three steals. That moves him into 15th place on Ripon's career scoring list with 1,218 points. Ryan Steffes and Seth Kostroski each added 16 points, while Mahone scored 15 in 19 minutes off the bench, while adding three boards, two blocks and a steal. In what was the final home game of his career, Senior Kyle Rutkowski set school records for games played and consecutive games played by appearing in his 101st career game for the Red Hawks, having never missed a contest.

Knox was led by Lowe's 30 points, six rebounds, and three assists, while Ethan Meeker added 22 points, seven assists, and four rebounds. Matthew Leary and Deryk Ruple each scored 10 points.

Ripon will now prepare for next week's MWC Tournament where they will be the number two seed and will battle Lake Forest in Friday's semifinals in De Pere, Wis., with the game time still to be determined. The winner of that game will play the winner of Friday's St. Norbert vs. Cornell game in Saturday's championship game at 3 p.m. in De Pere. All tournament games can be seen live at https://portal.stretchinternet.com/ripon/.