(St. Louis, Mo.) – The Webster University Gorloks hung tough for the first 20 minutes but the eighth ranked Washington University Bears were just too much in the second half in a 74-60 loss on Monday afternoon at Washington University.

            After a sluggish opening couple of minutes the Gorloks, (5-5) rebounded and trailed by just two points midway through the opening half. Washington U (9-2) responded with a trio of threes to push the lead to its largest of the stanza at 27-14 with more than eight minutes to play, but Webster would not go quietly clawing its way back scoring eight straight behind the duo of Luke Niebrugge and Ryan Turk to cut the lead to five with 5:02 to play. The Bears pushed their lead back to 10 points but the Gorloks scored four of the final five points of the frame and had a chance to get closer but turned it over with 0:15 left and then Turk forced a steal but could not get a shot away in time as the half ended with Washington U up 38-31.

            Niebrugge had 10 points to lead Webster on 4-of-4 shooting from the floor. Turk chipped in with nine more.

            The Gorloks defense did not have an answer for Aaron Thompson who finished the half with 11 points including 3-of-4 from behind the three point line. Troy Ruths contributed nine.

            Webster started the second half with the ball and had other opportunity to cut into the lead but missed a jumper and then a put back on the rebound. Thompson would make them pay nailing back-to-back triples to push the lead to 44-31 only a minute into the frame. The Gorloks would stay within 15 over the next eight minutes before a 9-2 run by the Bears pushed the lead to 24 points. Webster closed the game on a 13-3 run to cut the deficit to 14 for the final margin.

            Turk finished with 14 points while Niebrugge dropped in 12 and Corey Kuhn finished with 10.