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NWC MVP Lance Pecht had 23 points, 8 boards

SPOKANE, Wash. -- Lance Pecht scored 23 points and George Tucker added 20 as Whitworth College held off Willamette University 69-66 in a Northwest Conference men's basketball tournament first round match up on Thursday night in the Whitworth Fieldhouse.

Senior forward Pecht, the 2006 NWC Player of the Year, and Tucker, a Second Team All-NWC selection, led the Pirates (20-6) into Saturday night's NWC tournament championship game at the University of Puget Sound (20-4). Whitworth has won 11 games in a row. Willamette dropped to 17-8 and must hope for an at-large berth to the NCAA Division III men's basketball tournament.

Whitworth needed the contributions of Pecht and Tucker to overcome the effort of All-NWC senior guard John Olinger, who made six three pointers and led the Bearcats with 22 points. Fellow senior Jason Luchterhand added 13 points and a team-high eight rebounds and Josh Erickson came off of the bench to score 11 more for Willamette.

After Whitworth jumped to a quick 7-0 lead, including five points by Pecht, Willamette rallied to take a 12-9 lead on a free throw by Erickson. Whitworth retook a 19-16 lead after five straight points by Bryan Williams, but back to back three pointers by John Olinger put the Bearcats back up 27-24. Willamette eventually went to halftime with a 33-32 advantage.

Another three pointer by Olinger gave the Bearcats their largest lead of the game (38-33) early in the second half. But Whitworth rallied with an 8-0 run, four each by Tucker and Pecht, to take a 41-38 edge with 14:40 to play. The Pirates would never trail again, but could never shake the Bearcats either. Kevin Hasenfus got open inside on an inbounds play with 8:05 to play and scored to give Whitworth its biggest lead of the game (53-47).

But the Bearcats hung around and a three pointer by Erickson pulled Willamette to within 59-58 with 5:15 left. However, Whitworth's Jon Young, who was scoreless in the first half, hit two of his long three point shots, the second of which gave Whitworth a 65-60 lead with 4:22 left. Olinger answered with a long three pointer of his own with 2:46 to go, but then the teams traded four possessions without any scoring. Finally Pecht and Tucker each hit two free throws in one-and-one situations in the final minute to give the Bucs a 69-63 edge with 20 seconds left. But Olinger fired in a 26-foot three pointer with 13 seconds to play to close the gap to three. Whitworth was able to run all but the final four seconds off of the clock, but Bryan Williams missed the front end of his one and one, giving Willamette a final possession with three seconds left, however the Bearcats' inbounds pass after a timeout was too high giving the ball back to Whitworth.

Pecht added a team-high eight rebounds to go with his game high scoring. Young and Williams each scored nine points and Williams added a game-high seven assists.

Whitworth's win was the Pirates' third this season against Willamette and is the Bucs' six in a row in the series. Whitworth and UPS split their games this season. The Loggers won 106-105 in Tacoma on January 13th. The Pirates beat UPS 98-74 in Spokane on February 10th.