(Jacksonville, Ill.) – The Webster Gorloks clinched at least a share of the SLIAC championship with an 83-72 win at MacMurray on Saturday afternoon in Jacksonville, Ill. With the victory Webster secures a piece of its third conference title in the last four seasons.

    The Gorloks (17-5, 13-0 SLIAC) jumped out to an 8-0 lead while holding the Highlanders (3-19, 1-13 SLIAC) to just one field in the first five minutes. WU had plenty of opportunities to extend the lead but had a difficult time putting the ball in the bucket for a majority of the first half. MacMurray righted itself after its initial offensive struggles actually pulling within a bucket nearly halfway through the period. Webster responded with five straight points to push the lead to seven but MC continued to battle cutting the lead to four on an old-fashioned three point play by Wes Littrell at the 8:50 mark. From that point the Gorloks began to take control of the contest knocking down 7-of-12 (58 percent) from the field to head into the break with a 37-28 advantage.

    Brad Robinson gave the Highlanders fits in the first half nearly finishing with a double-double 10 points and nine rebounds to lead the way for Webster. Darin Hoggatt, Steve Hrdlicka and Doug Stiegemeier had six points apiece. Neil Compton had nine points to lead MacMurray while Billy Long finished added seven.

    The Gorloks came out strong to begin the second frame quickly expanding the lead to 17 points behind the duo of Hoggatt and Ryan Turk who scored four each in the stretch. Webster continued its strong play eventually stretching its lead to 71-49 with 7:17 remaining in the contest before empting the bench. MacMurray tried to keep the game respectable by knocking down 10-of-11 from the foul line in the final seven minutes but ended up just trading scores with WU until the final minute of play when it scored seven of the final nine points of the contest to get to the final margin.

    After shooting 44 percent (15-of-34) from the field in the first half, the Gorloks were even better in the second half connecting on 14-of-28 (50 percent) from the field to finish the game at a 47 percent clip. Defensively, Webster did a good job in shutting down the league’s second leading scorer holding Compton to only 15 points, six in the second half, and held MacMurray to only 24-of-69 (35 percent) from the floor and just 28 percent (7-of-25) from behind the three point line.

    Turk scored all 16 of his points in the second half to lead four WU in double figures. Hoggatt and Stiegemeier had 13 apiece while Robinson finished with a double-double with 11 points and 15 rebounds.