Appleton, WI- The MLC men's basketball team dropped its non conference game to the Lawrence Vikings on Friday night by a final score of 70-56.

The Knights played another competitive contest and were only down 32-29 at halftime, but were eventually outscored 38-27 in the second half, as the Vikings picked up the home win by double-digits.

MLC would come within one point (39-38) with 14:16 left after a pair of Micah Kieselhorst free throws, but Lawrence would expand their lead out to 10 points after a 9-0 run in the next few minutes, that was capped off by a Demovsky Hogan three pointer.

The Knights wouldn't give up that easily though and still tried to cut their deficit, by coming within six points (53-47) at the 7:10 mark when Trey Lauber converted on a layup. That would be the closest that MLC would get to, as the Vikings kept their cushion afloat with multiple free throws and solid defense.

One area in which Lawrence outperformed the Knights in was in the turnover situation. The Vikings forced MLC into 13 turnovers and scored 19 points off of them, while only turning the ball over six times themselves on offense.

MLC did have a good shooting night though, going 20-of-46 on 43.5 percent, but did struggle to get much going from the team as a collective unit offensively. Meanwhile, Lawrence had four players in double figures.

Ethan Kjenstad led MLC with 16 points on 6-of-9 shooting (67 percent), while Thomas Balge was the only other Knight to reach double figures, scoring 11 points with five of them coming off the charity stripe. 

You can see the men back on the court for their final game before Christmas Break on Sunday, December 17. The Knights will play a neutral site contest with Webster University in the Wisconsin Dells at 12 p.m.