RIPON, Wis. - The Ripon College men's basketball team moved to 5-0 in conference play for the first time in 10 years Wednesday night with a 98-82 win against Grinnell College, holding the Pioneers to 45 points under their season scoring average of 127 points per game. The Red Hawks only trailed once and led for the final 37 minutes thanks in large part to shooting 66 percent (40-61) from the field, including a red-hot 70 percent (19-27) in the first half. Ripon scored 32 fast break points on the night and outscored the Pioneers in the paint 74-24.

Despite the 16-point margin of victory, the first half was tightly contested throughout. Ripon (9-1, 5-0 MWC) led by 11 with five minutes left in the half, but Grinnell (7-3, 4-1 MWC) whittled that lead down to three four minutes later, and would go into halftime trailing 50-45.

With the Ripon hanging onto a four-point lead in the opening minutes of the second half, the Red Hawks went on a 28-12 run to take a 20-point lead with eight and a half minutes remaining. Grinnell would cut the lead to 12 later in the half, but that's as close as the score would get the rest of the night.

Ten different Ripon players scored at least two points. Koy Brecklin and Ty Sabin led the way with 16 points apiece, while Brecklin added a career-high 12 rebounds for his second career double-double. Jordan Stiede added 14 points on 7-of-7 shooting, while Liam Lesniak and Elliot Hoerdemann added 12 and 10 points, respectively, combining to shoot 9-of-11 from the field.

Grinnell was held to 34 percent (25-73) shooting, including 33 percent (13-40) from 3-point range. They were led by Mike Porter and Julian Marx, whom each scored 12 points. Vinny Curta added 10 points off the bench.

The win keeps Ripon in a first-place tie in the MWC standings with defending conference champion St. Norbert. The Red Hawks will be back in action on Saturday at Lake Forest College. That game will begin at 3 p.m. in Lake Forest, Ill. and can be seen live at https://portal.stretchinternet.com/ripon/.