Box Score The Aurora University Spartan men's basketball team opened up the 2012 portion of their schedule with a Northern Athletics Conference game against the Sabres of Marian University. In the early stages of the game, the two teams went back and forth for the lead. The game continued to play out as a close fight with the Spartans edging off the visiting Sabres by a score of 83-75.

The first half opened as both teams hunckering down on the defensive end of the court. 7:45 into the contest, the Spartans found themselves trailing 11-7.

Over the next three minutes, AU went on a 12-0 run to put them up by eight (19-11). The Spartans continued to build on this momentum and took a 12 point lead (28-16) on a lay-up by sophomore forward Scott Laskowski with 6:17 to play.

Marian would not go away quietly though, as the visitors battled back and cut the AU lead to 34-29 entering halftime.

Laskowski led all scorers with 12 points in the first-half and junior guard Joel Iventosch added eight points for the Spartans.

Coming out of the halftime intermission, Marian was able to tie the contest five minutes into the second half at 42-42.

The Spartans responded with a run of their own, tallying the next seven points over the next two minutes to regain the lead.

But as they had done to open the second-half, the Sabres chipped away at AU's lead. They tied the game up 51-51 with 11:19 left on the game clock.

When senior guard Contino Hunter hit one-of-two free-throws to give AU a 52-51 advantage, that would be the last time that AU would be tied or trail in the game.

The AU free-throw fueled an 16-5 run to put themselves up by 11 (67-56). This was the turning point in the game and the Spartans did not look back. The Spartans went on to win 83-75.

The win came due to a well rounded team effort by the Spartans as five players ended up with double digit points. Laskowski ended up with a double-double as he led the Spartans with 24 points, 10 rebounds and five steals. Sophomore guard Jordan Hester and Hunter added 14 points, Iventosch contributed 12 points and junior guard Esteban Vega tallied 11. The team shot over 41-percent (26-of-63) from the field and an impressive 83.9-percent (26-of-31) from the free-throw line.

With the win, the Spartans improve to 6-6 on the season and 2-2 in the NAC. The Spartans' next action comes at home in Thornton Gymnasium against Dominican University on Wednesday, January 11. Tip-off is set for 7 pm.