Decatur, Ill. – The No. 13 Washington University in St. Louis men's basketball team defeated Millikin 63-47 on the road on Saturday afternoon. The Bears are now 7-1 on the season.
Junior
Hayden Doyle led all scorers with 21 points to go with six rebounds. Junior
Drake Kindsvater also reached double-digits with 11 points and five rebounds. Sophomore
Will Grudzinski scored seven points and grabbed six rebounds while sophomore
Calvin Kapral scored seven points.
The Bears used a big second half to secure the win, outscoring the Big Blue 43-24 after trailing by three at the break.
Millikin went up 7-1 in the first five-and-a-half minutes and following a 3-pointer by Jacob Bullock, made it a 10-3 game.
First-year
Ryan Cohen netted a 3-pointer at the 12:09 mark to cut it to a four-point deficit. Following a bucket from Millikin, Cohen drilled another shot from distance to make it 12-3 with 11:23 on the clock.
A jumper from Doyle at 7:47 closed the gap to two points, 15-13.
The teams continued to exchange buckets with the Big Blue holding a slight lead up to five points in the final 5:40. A layup from Kapral with 1:05 remaining sent WashU into the halftime break trailing 23-20.
Two minutes into the second half, the Bears went on a 9-0 run to go up 30-27 with 15:29 on the clock. Grudzinski started things off with a fastbreak 3-pointer and Kapral netted a jumper to make it a one-point game. Doyle hit back-to-back jumpers to close out the run and put the Bears ahead.
Another 5-0 run behind a 3-pointer from
Kyle Beedon and a jumper from Kapral put the Bears up 35-29 with 11:35 remaining in the half.
After Millikin cut it to a three-point deficit, the Bears scored eight-straight points to go up 45-34, the first double-digit lead of the game. Kindsvater hit the back end of a pair of free throws and Doyle drilled a shot from behind the arc. Kindsvater hit a jumper in the paint and then converted a pair of free throws.
WashU extended its lead to 16 points, 52-36, following back-to-back 3-pointers from Doyle and Grudzinski and a free throw from Grudzinski.
Kindsvater netted a 3-pointer at the 2:17 mark and sophomore
Yogi Oliff hit a pair of free throws to put the Bears up 59-40.
Doyle and Oliff each hit a pair of free throws down the stretch to close things out and give the Bears the win.
The Bears have back-to-back home games in two weeks with a 1 p.m. tip against Fontbonne on Saturday, Dec. 16 and a 3 p.m. game against Principia on Sunday, Dec. 17.