SUPERIOR, Wis. - Both the UW-Eau Claire men's basketball team and the UW-Superior Yellowjackets moved to 2-2 in conference play after today's 68-59 win for the Yellowjackets.

Eau Claire is 8-4 overall while Superior is 5-6.

The game started fine for the Blugolds, who had the lead for the first 13 minutes. The largest point was an 8-2 margin at 17:08 after Zack Ryan (Sr.-Lake Elmo, MN/Tartan) sank his second free throw. It stayed near five until the Blugolds went on a drought of more than four minutes. During this, Superior cut away at the lead and went up 21-19 at 6:58.

Six straight Blugold points put Eau Claire up four again at 5:13. The Yellowjackets went on a 9-0 run to close out the half up 30-25.

Superior kept up with Eau Claire from the floor, trailing 44.6 percent-to-45.8 percent. The Blugolds made 1-of-8 from long range and Superior hit 3-of-7.

The Blugolds fell down by nine after two straight Yellowjackets makes kicked off the second half. However, consecutive threes by Ryan Shea (Fr.-Duluth, MN/East) and Geoff Probst (So.-Moose Lake, MN) narrowed the margin to 39-38 at 13:26. At 12:39, Colin Boone (So.-Eau Claire/Memorial) was fouled during a three and he nailed all three free throws to tie the game at 41. Superior answered with a layup, but Probst knocked down another trey to put the Blugolds up 44-43. After a pair of free throws for the home team, Ryan layed one in to give Eau Claire its last lead of the game at 8:34.

Superior built the lead to five at 6:47, but the Blugolds fought back to tie it 51-51 at 5:19. Eight straight Yellowjacket points followed and, though Eau Claire brought it down to two at 1:28, they never recovered as Superior won 68-59.

Both teams shot similarly in the second half and it showed up in the final totals with Superior holding the edge in shooting percentage 44.6 percent-to-43.4 percent. The Yellowjackets shot 6-of-13 on threes compared to 5-of-16 for Eau Claire. The Blugolds sank 8-of-11 from the line as Superior went 12-of-14.

Probst had 17 points to lead the Blugolds and Shea had 14. Shea also had three blocks. Dan Beyer (Sr.-Waukesha/Catholic Memorial) and his 11 boards were tops in the rebounding department for Eau Claire.

The team will stay in the conference for the rest of the season and will host UW-Whitewater on Saturday and UW-Oshkosh next Wednesday.

Eau Claire-Superior Box Score

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