Pioneers Dominate in a 93-66 Victory over St. Norbert
In one of the team's best defensive performances in over 11 years, the Grinnell College men's basketball team remains in control of the conference race, as it defeated St. Norbert 93-66 on Saturday afternoon.
The 66 points allowed is the fewest points the team has allowed and still picked up the win since an 81-62 victory over the Green Knights back on January 26th, 1996. St. Norbert kept the game close early on as neither team led by more than three points until Grinnell used a 9-2 run midway through the half to extend its lead to nine at 30-21.
SNC clawed back to within 30-25, but then the Pioneers broke the game open by going on a 10-2 run, increasing the advantage to 14 with 4:29 left. The Green Knights got no closer than 12 points the rest of the half and Grinnell finished the frame on a 22-8 run over the final 9:08 to increase its lead to 52-33.
Grinnell shot 39.5 percent during the first half, including 10-of-26 from downtown. St. Norbert made 14-of-27 shots from the field, as well as 5-of-6 from the charity stripe, but committed 20 first-half turnovers.
The game then went back-and-forth for the first five minutes of the second half before Grinnell went up by 31 with just more than six minutes remaining in the contest. The Pioneers lead by as many as 36 in the final minutes of the game before St. Norbert closed the contest on a 9-0 run.
Bobby Long '08 scored 16 of his game-high 22 points in the first half to lead the Pioneers. David Arseneault '09 followed with 17 points and seven assists, as John Grotberg '09 and Mike Schmidt '08 added 14 and 11 points respectively. Keith Chamberlain '08 turned in a solid defensive performance, hauling in 10 rebounds, blocking three shots, and recording a game-high four steals.
Tom Katzfey and Tony Jandron scored 13 and 11 points respectively to lead the Green Knights. Nathan Zepnick hauled in nine rebounds as Bryan Gentz picked up a pair of steals.
Grinnell improves to 14-6 overall (10-3 MWC) and will return to action when they host Lake Forest in a 3:00 p.m. contest next Saturday inside Darby Gym.
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