The atmosphere in Flood Arena was electric Wednesday evening. In front of a raucous crowd, two Buccaneers had career nights leading the Beloit College men's basketball team a 72-67 win over Lawrence University in an absolute thriller. Senior forward
Andrew Walters broke Beloit's career rebounding record while
Michael Myles dropped in a career-high 20 to bolster the Bucs victory.
Walters, a fifth-year senior, broke the record in the second half with his sixth rebound of the night. With that board, Walters surpassed current Buc head coach
Josh Hinz for the top spot in the program record book with 835 career rebounds.
Lawrence dominated the first half shooting 50-percent from the floor to take a 36-26 lead into halftime. Beloit came out of the break on a mission opening the second half on a 15-5 run to knot the game 41-41.
Caden Anderson had a strong putback in the paint that drew a foul and had the crowd roaring for the tying bucket.
On Beloit's next possession,
Michael Myles drained a three-pointer to give the Bucs their first lead of the game with 14:20 on the clock. The game would be tied three times with neither team leading by more than five over the next 13 minutes.
The energy was incredible in the gym as the game was coming down to the wire. The Vikings hit a pair of free throws to cut the Buc lead to one, 66-65 with just over a minute to play.
Brian Rusch had the answer hitting a huge shot from downtown off a Myles assist to push the gap back to four with 45 seconds remaining. Following a couple of missed Lawrence three's, Rusch dropped in two from the charity stripe with less than 30 seconds to go to extend the advantage to six, 71-65. Another free throw, this time from
Mylan Walters with less than 10 seconds remaining sealed the game.
Beloit was red-hot in the second half hitting 62-percent of their shots from tthe floor including 7-12 from distance. The defense picked up the pace, frustrating the Vikings and holding them to under 37-percent from the field and just 3-17 from long range in the final 20 minutes.
Four Bucs tallied double digits in the scoring column led by Myles' 20 on 8-11 from the floor including a perfect 4-4 from three-point range.
Mylan Walters added 16 while Rusch ended with 14 and Anderson had 10.
Andrew Walters hauled in seven boards on his record-breaking night, all on the defensive glass adding a game-high four assists in the contest.
Azeez Ganiyu battled through double teams most of the night but brought down a game-high 10 rebounds.
