Defense key to Spartans 67-58 win over Dominican

AU blocked eight shots on the night, including one here by junior Ryan Crow.

Box Score The Aurora University Spartans hosted the Stars of Dominican University Wednesday night in Thornton Gymnasium. The Spartans went on to beat the Stars in this Northern Athletics Conference match-up by a

final score of 67-58.

To start off the first half, the Spartans and Stars exchanged baskets to find themselves tied 6-6 after five minutes of play.

Aurora sophomore forward Scott Laskowski started off a 10-2 run when he made a layup with 14:59 remaining. This run gave the Spartans the lead 16-8 with 11 minutes remaining in the opening half.

The Stars fought back and scored seven points in the next 1:15 of play to draw within one point of the lead, 16-15.

Laskowski helped the Spartans expand their lead to 10 points by scoring six of his own on a 13-4 run. After exchanging two-point field goals, the Stars made the last four baskets of the half to cut the Spartan lead to two points. The teams went into the locker rooms at halftime of a 31-29 game in favor of Aurora.

To open up the second half, the Stars tallied four quick points in just over a minute of play. This propelled

them into an early second half lead.

The teams once again went back and forth over the next seven minutes of play to find themselves tied once again. The score was 44-44 with just over 12 minutes left to play.

Dominican's Brandon Barkley, a freshman forward, nailed back to back three-pointers to give the Stars a six-point lead (50-44) with 11:08 left on the clock.

Up to this point, the six-point deficit was the biggest of the game for the Spartans.

Coach Lancaster elected to use a timeout at this point in the game which proved to work in favor of the Spartans. After the timeout, the team went on a 16-5 run as they regained the lead. This run put them ahead by seven with just under four minutes left to play.

Great Spartan defense in the remaining minutes held the Stars to just three points, all of which came from the free-throw line. Aurora went on to win the game by a score of 67-58.

Laskowski led the Spartans with 31 points. He also added 18 rebounds and four blocked shots, both team highs for the game.

Junior guard Esteban Vega added 10 points of his own, while junior forward Ryan Crow had nine points along with seven rebounds and three steals.

With the win, the Spartans move on to 7-6 overall and 3-2 in the NAC. Their next action will come on the road as they take on Maranatha Baptist this Saturday at 4:15 pm.

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