St. Louis, Mo. – The No. 22 Washington University in St. Louis men's basketball team beat Babson 90-85 in an overtime thriller on Friday evening in its opening game of the 39^th Annual Lopata Classic.
 
The Bears had five players reach double-figures against the Beavers, led by junior Drake Kindsvater's 22 points and eight rebounds.
 
Sophomore Calvin Kapral poured in a career-high 21 points to go with six rebounds and junior Hayden Doyle had a double-double with 15 points and 11 rebounds along with five assists.
 
Sophomore Yogi Oliff had 13 points, five rebounds and five assists while sophomore Will Grudzinski scored 11 points and pulled down eight boards.
 
WashU took a 4-2 lead in the opening minutes following buckets from Doyle and Kapral, which would be the only lead for the Bears until overtime.
 
Babson went up 12-7 at the 16:27 mark following a 3-pointer from Nate Amado. The lead for the Beavers remained five points or fewer until 12:52 when a jumper from Tyler Lauder made it a seven-point, 20-13 game.
 
A pair of free throws from Doyle closed Babson's lead to 20-17 midway through the half but a layup from Mark Woolhouse and a jumper from Steph Baxter put the Beavers' up 26-18 with 9:21 on the clock.
 
With 7:45 remaining, a layup from Baxter extended the Beavers' lead to double-digits, 30-20. Another bucket from Baxter with 2:46 on the clock gave Babson its largest lead of the half, 37-24.
 
Kindsvater hit a jumper and was fouled, making the ensuing free throw to cut Babson's lead to 42-34 with 33 seconds left in the first half. A 3-pointer from the Beavers' John Gorgol put them back up by double digits but a jumper from Oliff with four seconds on the clock sent WashU into the halftime break down 45-36.
 
Kapral opened the second half with a jumper to cut the Beavers lead down to seven points, 45-38. Babson built it back up to as many as 12 points but five-straight free throws from the Bears cut it down to 50-44 at the 15:31 mark.
 
The Beavers kept a lead of at least six points for the next several minutes until back-to-back buckets from Doyle made it a 54-50 game.
 
However, Babson hit two 3-pointers in a row to extend the lead back to 10.
 
WashU scored six-straight points on two layups from Kapral and a bucket from Kindsvater to bring it back down to four points, 64-60, with 7:11 remaining on the clock. For nearly four minutes, the Beavers kept a lead of at least six points until a 3-pointer from Grudzinski at the 3:29 mark made it a 73-69 game.
 
Down seven with 1:41 remaining, Kindsvater drilled a shot from distance to make it 78-74. Oliff netted a free throw with just 38 seconds left to make it a three-point, 78-75 game.
 
Lauder dunked it for Babson to extend its lead back to five points.
 
With 18 seconds left, Oliff hit a jumper in the paint to make it 80-77. Following two time outs, Oliff stole the Beavers' inbounds pass and found Grudzinski who drilled a 3-pointer to tie things up and force overtime.
 
The Bears opened up overtime with back-to-back layups from Kapral and Doyle to go up 84-80. The Beavers cut it back down to two points, twice, but a jumper from Kapral at the 1:32 mark and a free throw from Doyle with 54 seconds remaining gave WashU the 88-83 edge.
 
Baxter needed a jumper with 20 seconds remaining and Grudzinski closed things out with two free throws.
 
Baxter led all scorers with a career-high 40 points to go with five rebounds and five assists.
 
WashU out-rebounded Babson 51-33. The Bears went 31-for-71 (43.7%) from the floor but struggled from distance, shooting just 4-for-19 (21.1%).
 
The Bears will face Hanover tomorrow at 5 p.m. in the Lopata Classic final.