Lancers Hold Off Lawrence TechWINONA LAKE – With a quick glance at the boxscore for Tuesday night’s Grace College men’s basketball game, Erik Bowen’s 17 rebounds stands out. In an 84-79 win over the Lawrence Tech University Blue Devils, it was a pair of made free throws by the 6-foot-6 junior that sealed the deal for the Lancers. Clinging to a three-point lead after LTU’s Jay Redman swished a trey, Bowen hit a pair of charity tosses with just under two seconds remaining, helping Grace improve to 4-0 on the season. LTU fell to 0-2. Bowen finished the game with 12 points, 17 rebounds and four assists, while senior guard Tre Olive scored 18 points and freshman forward Charlie Warner added 12 points in the win. Grace coach Jim Kessler, now in his 40th season with the Lancers, was happy to see his team win, but wishes his players had more of a killer instinct. The Lancers held a 15-point lead with 4:44 left in the game. “We’re a really young team and it showed tonight,” said Kessler, whose team has just two seniors. “We didn’t shoot particularly well. I asked them early on, ‘what happens when your field goal percentage lets you down?’ Well, tonight it did, and we had to do some other things to be competitive. In the long run that’s good for us. “Lawrence Tech shot the ball well late, and we kept making defensive errors in terms of allowing the ball to go where it needed to go. I don’t think we really rebounded the way we set out to do. The good thing is we made the shots we needed to win, and we hit some free throws.” The Lancers finished the game 26 of 62 (42 percent) from the field overall and 5 of 20 from three-point range. The Blue Devils were 29 of 66 (44 percent) overall and 8 of 23 from the arc. Where Grace shot better was the free throw line, as the Lancers made 27 of 34 charity shots to LTU’s 13 of 18. “We had to play tonight,” said Kessler. “In the long run that’s good for us, because we had to do make things happen other than just shoot the ball well. “We had some good looks, but we didn’t make them. We haven’t really mastered the concept of how to put it away together. We need to get the lead to 15 and close it out. We’re a young team, we haven’t figured out how to do that yet.” Grace trailed 18-11 early in the game but went on to lead 37-33 at halftime, thanks to an 18-4 run. Junior Chad Hoffer scored 10 points in the win, while Sophomore Logan Godfrey finished with nine points, six rebounds, three assists and two steals. Freshman Braxton Linville and junior Stephen Halstead chipped in with eight and seven points, respectively. Robbie Geoghegan led the Blue Devils with a game-high 21 points, while Payton Dewildt and Redman scored 13 each and Travis Baker finished with 12 points. Grace will be in action again Friday and Saturday, playing in the Trinity International Tournament.
