Box Score For the second straight game, the Dominican University men’s basketball team turned a halftime deficit into a Northern Athletics Conference (NAC) victory, this time trailing the Benedictine University Eagles 43-36 at the break before outscoring the Eagles 48-36 in the second stanza to emerge with a 84-79 road win at the Dan and Ada Rice Center on Wednesday night.
 
As he did last Saturday, when Dominican turned a 19-point deficit into a one-point win over visiting Marian University, sophomore Anthony Keener (Carol Stream, Ill.) led the Stars’ second half surge, scoring 16 points of his team-high 18 points in the second period.  Keener and the Stars shot over 46-percent from the field in the second half (13-for-28) while holding Benedictine to just 34-percent shooting from the field (8-for-23), including an 0-for-9 clip from behind the three-point arc.
 
Trailing 52-46 with 15:19 to play in the second half, 6’7” Josh Ward (Burr Ridge, Ill.) knocked down his second triple of the game as Keener came off a high ball screen from Ward before Ward popped to the top of the key.
 
With just under 13:00 to play, it was Keener’s turn to knock down a triple, knotting the score at 54-all.  After a stop on the defensive end of the floor, Keener then knocked down a pair of free throws on the Stars’ next possession to give Dominican their first lead since the 5:15 mark in the first half, when the Stars led 31-30.
 
After another pair of free throws from Keener, Taylor DeRoo (Holland, Mich.) scored five straight for the Stars to give Dominican their largest lead of the half, 63-54 with 10:28 to play.
 
Dominican was able to stave off a couple of Eagle comeback attempts, preserving the victory at the free throw line, going 20-for-25 at the charity stripe in the second half, including 5-for-8 in the final minute.
 
Keener finished with a team-high 18 points to lead four players in double-figures scoring for the Stars.  DeRoo came off the bench to score 15 points on 5-for-7 shooting from the field and going a perfect 5-for-5 at the foul line.  Logan Harris (Pleasant Plains, Ill.) added 13 while Ward closed out the night with 11 points.  Harris also grabbed a team-high nine rebounds in 39 minutes of work.
 
Michael Woolf, Tim McGinty and Drake Danford combined to score 56 of the Eagles 79 points.  Woolf took game-high honors with 20 points while McGinty and Danford dumped in 18 in the losing effort.
 
The win improves the Stars to 3-4 overall and 2-1 in the NAC.  The Stars will enjoy back-to-back off days before returning to action on Saturday at Aurora University.  Tipoff is scheduled for 4:15 p.m.