The Case Western Reserve University men's basketball team opened Wednesday night's game on a 13-2 run and never looked back, as the Spartans surged to their second-straight win with a 86-76 victory at Denison University in Granville, Ohio.

With the win, the Spartans improved to 2-1 on the season, while Denison dropped to 0-1. It was the second-straight game that CWRU never trailed in.

Senior Ryan Newton finished with a career-high 22 points to lead all scorers in the game, shooting 10-of-12 overall from the floor and adding two rebounds and two blocks. He led a group of five Spartans to score in double figures in the game, with senior Robert Faller adding 14 points, graduate student Brian Hines scoring 13, graduate student Mitch Prendergast notching 12, and junior Cole Frilling finishing with 11 points. Frilling also led all Spartans in the game with eight rebounds and six assists with three steals, while Prendergast added four steals of his own.

The Spartans were red hot in the first half, shooting a blistering 70.4% (19-of-27) overall, including five-of-eight (62.5%) from long range. After the initial 13-2 run gave CWRU an 11-point lead just four minutes into the game, the Spartans would go on to lead by as many as 21 points in the opening frame. The Spartans took a 20-point advantage into halftime, 46-26, after Prendergast knocked down a layup to end the period.

Prendergast finished the first half with a team-high 10 points on four-of-five shooting overall and two-of-three from long range, while Frilling added seven points, four rebounds and four assists.

The Spartans lead would balloon to as many as 27 points after scoring the first seven points of the second half to extend their advantage to 53-26 with 18:58 to play, but the Big Red would eventually find their footing, and eat away at the Spartans lead, cutting it to as few as seven points, 79-72, by the 2:26 mark. However, Newton would convert a key and-one with 2:08 left that extended the Spartans' lead back to 10 points, 82-72, and CWRU maintained a double-digit lead from that point forward to close out the victory.

The Spartans finished the game shooting 65.5% overall, including 41.2% from three-point range, and dominated in the paint, outscoring Denison 52-36 on close-range shots.

The Spartans will be back on the road this weekend, when the team travels to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to face La Roche College. Tip-off is scheduled for 1:00 p.m.