Lakeland College

Muskies stay in hunt for NAC tourney with road win

Athletics - posted on 2/16/2008

The Lakeland men's basketball team had five players score in double figures as the Muskies stayed in the thick of the hunt for a conference tournament berth with an 83-74 win at Concordia University Chicago.

Lakeland improved to 14-10 overall and 10-7 in Northern Athletics Conference play. The Muskies are tied in the loss column for fifth place in the NAC with Edgewood and Dominican, while Concordia, Wis., and Benedictine are a game back with eight losses. The Muskies wrap up regular season NAC play on Feb. 23 at NAC champion Aurora.

The eight-team NAC postseason tournament gets underway on Feb. 26.

Lakeland shot 64 percent from the floor in the first half (56 percent from 3-point range) and led 42-35 at the break. The Muskies shot 54 percent for the game, and were led in scoring by senior Aaron Regal's 21 and classmate Kris Saiberlich's 20. Senior Danny Ehnert added 12 points and eight rebounds, sophomore Khendal Andrews added 11 and junior Peter Worth scored 10.

"A lot of different guys did good things," Lakeland head coach Kyle Brumett said. "Today we played better offensively than we had been. Khendal was really good in the first half and gave us a spark offensively. Aaron was steady the whole game, and Kris really shot it in the second half."

Brumett was also pleased with the team's turnover to assist ratio as the Muskies dished out 17 assists and had just four turnovers. CUC (3-20, 2-14) did win the rebound battle, 32-26, which Brumett said allowed the hosts to stay in the game.

"We were not very good defensively, and we gave them too many second-chance points," Brumett said. "Tonight, our offense was good but our defense was not as good, which is a reverse of the last couple games. Obviously playing Aurora, the best team in the conference, next week, we're going to need to play well at both ends."

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