DE PERE, Wis. - Ripon's men's basketball team is one game away from returning to the NCAA Tournament after a three-year hiatus, after defeating Lake Forest 82-51 in Friday's Midwest Conference Tournament semifinals. That moves the Red Hawks into Saturday's MWC Tournament Championship Game against host school and top seed St. Norbert.

Friday's victory didn't come easy, as Lake Forest (13-13) gave the Red Hawks (19-7) all they could handle in the first half, scoring the game's first six points and getting out to a quick 12-4 lead. The Foresters would lead by nine just five and a half minutes into the contest, but Ripon battled back to take their first lead of the game on a Jaylen Mahone basket with just under three minutes left in the half, before taking a 31-28 lead into halftime.

After the break, Ripon came out firing, shooting 61 percent (19-31) after halftime and 70 percent (7-10) from 3-point range in the second half. Leading by seven with 15 minutes remaining, the Red Hawks put the game away with a 36-9 run to give them their largest lead of 34 points in the final minutes.

MWC Player of the Year Trent Jones led all scorers with 20 points on 8-of-13 shooting, to go along with five rebounds. Ryan Steffes added 13 points on 5-of-7 shooting, while Mahone scored 13 points in 23 minutes off the bench. The Red Hawks out-rebounded Lake Forest 48-27, with Kyle Rutkowski's 11 boards leading the way.

Lake Forest was led by Michael Drew Jr.'s 16 points and six rebounds. Sean Espinosa and Aram Arslanian each added seven points for the Foresters, which shot 29 percent (9-31) after halftime.

Saturday's MWC Tournament Championship Game between Ripon and St. Norbert will begin at 3 p.m. in De Pere, and can be seen live at https://portal.stretchinternet.com/ripon/. The winner of that game receives an automatic bid to the 2020 NCAA Division-III Tournament.