UW-La Crosse fell to 16th ranked Hope College 65-47 at Mitchell Hall on Friday night. In the first ever meeting between the two schools, it was UW-L who was able to get off to a fast start and able to mount a 22-14 lead. However, Flying Dutchman Dante Hawkins made a three pointer that capped off a 12 to 4 run to tie the game at 26 for the Flying Dutchmen with 2:33 left in the first half. Less than a minute later Hope College took their first lead with Dutchman Ben Gardner jumper and tacked on a couple of free throws to take a 32-29 lead into halftime.

The Eagles missed their final 5 shots from the field to close out the first half and overall unable to record a field goal in the final 6:25 of the first half. UW-L was able to cut the lead to 36-33 on Flying Dutchman Ben Meinholz jumper with 17:22 left in the game. But once again the Flying Dutchmen answered with 13 to 2 run that was aided by four UW-L turnovers to push their lead to 49-35 with less than 11 minutes left in the game.

UW-L cut the lead to 12 with a pair of Flying Dutchman Austin Fritz free throws, but that was as close as the Eagles would get, as the Flying Dutchmen were able to dominate the rest of the game and cruise to a 65-47 victory. The Eagles shot just 20% (5-25) and missed all 5 of their three-point attempts from the field in the second half, compared to the Flying Dutchmen who shot 46.2% (12-26) in the second half. For the game, the Eagles shot 28% from the field, including 33.3% from three-point range, and 71.4% (15-21) from the free throw line.

UW-L was led by Eagle Devin Yurk who scored a team high 13 points, 11 of which came in the first half, Ben Meinholz had a solid overall game scoring 9 points and grabbed a team-high 8 rebounds. Ryan Kruser scored 8 off the bench for the Eagles. The Flying Dutchmen of Hope College overall shot 40.7% from the field and 29.4% (5-17) from three-point range. The Flying Dutchmen were led by Ben Gardner who finished with a team high 13 points, seven rebounds and six assists, Sam Otto chipped in with 11 points. It was the Flying Dutchmen’s first game of the season as they start the new-year at 1-0, while the loss puts the Eagles at 1-2 to start the season and will face Bethel University on Saturday.