DE PERE, Wisconsin – Despite 39 combined points from Luke Meinholz and Connor Spielvogel, the Ripon men's basketball program was unable to put away St. Norbert as the Green Knights escaped with an 82-77 overtime thriller on Wednesday night inside the Mulva Family Fitness and Sports Center.
 
In a physical game with four total technical fouls, St. Norbert (1-0) went on a critical 7-0 run over three minutes of overtime to put Ripon (0-1) away.
 
STANDOUT HAWKS

• Junior guard Luke Meinholz had a career-high 24 points on 9 of 20 shooting. He added 8 rebounds, 7 steals and 3 assists.
• Senior guard Connor Spielvogel tallied a career-high 15 points, shooting 50% from beyond the arc (5-10). He chipped in 3 rebounds and an assist.
• Junior forward Jayden Fitch, in his Ripon debut, tallied 11 points and 5 boards.
• Senior guard Clark Cunningham, off the bench, collected a career-high 9 points, 2 rebounds and a pair of assists.
• Sophomore forward Kolby Williams, also in his first game at Ripon, had 7 points and 5 rebounds.

PLAY-BY-PLAY
 
After falling into a 9-2 hole early on, William Ryan came off the bench and sparked Ripon with a pair of steals. A thunderous dunk by Williams propelled the Red Hawks on an 8-0 run to lead 10-9. From there, both teams took turns pulling ahead before Ripon took a 26-19 lead with 6:09 remaining in the half. After a layup by Fitch and a three by Spielvogel – his second of the half – the Red Hawks led 33-21 and forced a second SNC timeout. Ripon was held to just one field goal the final three minutes of the half, but still took a double-digit lead into intermission (40-29).
 
Out of the break, SNC quickly erased its deficit and took the lead with a 16-4 run before Meinholz answered to regain the Ripon advantage. After going back and forth, Fitch canned a triple to open up a 51-47 Red Hawk lead. However, the Green Knights would not go away, scoring 11 consecutive points while holding Ripon scoreless in a three and a half minute sequence to lead 62-54 with 7:58 left. The Red Hawks would chip away, tying the game at 67 following Spielvogel's fifth triple of the game with 4:38 left. Moments later, Meinholz sank a free throw to give Ripon its first lead in over seven minutes. With the teams tied at 72, Meinholz made one of two free throws with five seconds left to put Ripon up, but SNC also split a pair of throws with 0.3 seconds remaining to send the game into overtime.
 
In overtime, the teams traded baskets before Aidan Harrington completed the old-fashioned three-point play to give SNC a 78-75 lead with 3:54 left. The Red Hawks went cold the rest of the way, scoring just twice on free throws, as the Green Knights won their first game in this series since 2019.
 
KEY STATS

• Both teams shot evenly, but St. Norbert held a slight edge in field goal percentage (45.5% to 45.2%).
• Ripon turned SNC over 20 times, but had 18 turnovers itself.
• The Green Knights made more free throws (27-46) than the Red Hawks attempted (12-22).
• In a balanced SNC offensive effort, Carter Gebler led the Green Knights with 16 points and 10 assists.

UP NEXT
Ripon stays on the road, heading to defending American Rivers Conference champion Coe on Saturday (November 11) at 5 p.m.
 
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