IW men fall flat at Fontbonne

ST. LOUIS, Mo. - The Iowa Wesleyan men's basketball team had a slow start in their St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference road game at Fontbonne University on Wednesday night. Fontbonne won the game 94-83 to hand IW their fifth-straignt loss.

After Fontbonne scored the first bucket, IW tied the game at 2-2 on a Marvin Saintolien jumper, and then later at 6-6 on a couple of free throws by Jake Neubauer. Fontbonne rushed down and hit a 3-pointer after the Neubauer free throws and it was never even again.

The Griffins led the Tigers 45-30 after the first half. The Griffins scored the first four points of the second half, stretching their lead to 19 points, at 49-30.

IW fought back in the second half to cut the lead back to single digits, when Austin Banks nailed a 3-pointer with 9:21 remaining, making it 67-58. Fontbonne hit a layup on the other end, however, and the Tigers never got within 10 again.

The Griffins held their biggest lead of the game with 3:19 left when a 3-pointer stretched the advantage to 88-64. IW ended the game on a 19-6 run, but the Tigers ran out of time and had to settle for an 11-point loss.

Jarryd Fernandes had a big game despite the loss. He finished the night 9-for-11 from the field and led the team with 20 points and 10 rebounds. Neubauer finished the night with 19 points, and Banks had 16 points and four assists.

Kaleb Cresswell scored seven points in the loss. Alex Dentlinger had six points. Saintolien scored five. Alberto Torres scored four. Jett Tjaden and David Seber ended with three each.

The Tigers are now 8-16 overall and 5-11 in SLIAC play. They'll host Webster for their final game this Saturday.