The UW-Eau Claire men’s basketball team grabbed a share of the WIAC conference lead with a 67-58 win over previous lone first-place holder UW-River Falls Saturday night at Zorn Arena.

The victory, along with UW-Stout’s 92-83 win over second-place team UW-Whitewater, allowed the Blugolds to tie River Falls for the lead at 9.5. The Blugolds improved their season record to 15-7.

Whitewater stayed a half-game back at 9-6 and UW-Stevens Point pulled to within a game of the top spot at 8-6.

The Blugolds trailed only once in the victory that avenged their 73-65 loss to the Falcons four weeks ago at River Falls.

After the Falcons took an early 11-10 lead, the Blugolds spurted to a 24-15 advantage, their largest of the first half. They settled for a 29-26 lead by intermission.

River Falls tied the score three times in the second half with the last time coming with the score 40-40 at 12:50 showing on the clock. But the team was never able to get within six points again.

After the last tie, the Blugolds began to pull away as they jumped to their biggest lead of the game, 58-46, with 6:32 remaining.

River Falls made five more baskets in the contest, but proved to be no match to the Blugolds’ 11 for 22 shooting from three-point range.

The Blugolds finished off the Falcons, going seven for eight from the free-throw line in the last minute of regulation.

“Early on it was pretty tight,” senior Todd Marks said. “We controlled the last 10 minutes of the second half by keeping them off the glass. Matt Fermanich came up big for us. He made some big three’s late in the game.”

Marks scored eight points and grabbed seven rebounds to help the ‘Golds.

Eau Claire had four players score in double-figures led by Fermanich. He knocked down his first six three-point attempts and added two free throws to finish with a career-high 20 points and a team-high four assists.

Senior Sherm Carstensen hit three of his six three-point attempts to finish with 15 points and three assists. Sophomore Andy Witte scored 12 points and brought down 5 rebounds. Sophomore Jason Larson added 10 points and had five rebounds and three assists.

Eau Claire also made 18 of 21 free throws for the game compared to 8 of 11 for River Falls. The Falcons connected on just two of nine three-point attempts.

River Falls was led by Rich Melzer who totaled 16 off the bench while Kent Becker scored 15 and Pat Ptacek had 12.

The ‘Golds will finish their conference campaign on the road next week with games Wednesday at UW-Platteville and Saturday at UW-Oshkosh.