PERU, Neb. – The Raven Men's Basketball team went 10 deep on Wednesday night with all 10 players in the scoring column as Benedictine picked up a 74-70 win over Peru State College.
The win snapped a two-game skid for the Ravens and wrapped up their three-game road swing.
After playing to the third tie of the game at 10-10, the Bobcats pulled away from the Ravens to push ahead by as much as 10 points, 22-12, with 13 minutes left in the first half. The Ravens erased their deficit with a 12-3 run that was capped off by a Chris Jackson 3-pointer that forced Peru State into a timeout with just under eight minutes as they held a 25-24 lead.
Peru State answered with another mini-run that pushed their lead back to nine points before Benedictine closed the half out with 3-pointers from Wills Wallrapp and Nysir Scott while Jaiden Bristol added a basket off a turnover to pull Benedictine within one, 35-34, at the half.
While both teams enjoyed runs in the first half where they limited the other offensively, the second half would go back and forth for nearly the full 20 minutes. Jayden Temme hit a 3-pointer to open the second half for Benedictine and give the Ravens their first lead since the opening minutes of play. A second 3-pointer from Temme followed by a basket from Colby Nickles gave the Ravens the lead which they held for the next six minutes before Peru State pulled the game into its fifth tie near the midpoint of the second half.
Over the final 10 minutes of the game, the teams played through seven more ties with the lead changing hands ix times. Bristol connected on a 3-pointer with just over four minutes left to play that gave the Ravens a two-point advantage. The Bobcats tied the game twice over the final four minutes but never pulled ahead. Benedictine went 7 of 8 at the free-throw line down the stretch to hold off the Bobcats and earn the four-point win.
Benedictine hit 12 of 15 from the charity stripe in the second half to finish the game at 78.9 percent. They finished shooting 48.1 percent from the floor with a total of 9 3-pointers. Bristol and Matt Austin led three Ravens in double figures with 12 points each. Scott finished with 10 points as the Ravens outscored the Bobcats 28-10 off the bench.
The Ravens host (RV) MNU at 4 p.m. Saturday inside the Ralph Nolan Gymnasium. The Pioneers enter their first meeting with the Ravens riding a three-game winning streak and are coming off a 98-68 win over Evangel University on Wednesday.
