Box Score SALT LAKE CITY – It took an extra five minutes, but the Westminster College men's basketball team pulled off an 81-80 win over No. 19 Montana Western on Thursday night in the Behnken Field House.

Westminster needed the win to get back in the Frontier Conference race.  The Griffins entered the night three games behind Western on MSU-Northern as the second half of league play began.  With Thursday's win, Westminster is now 16-8 overall on the year and 4-4 in Frontier action.  UMW drops to 18-6 and 6-2.

The entire game was played within an 18 point window with both teams holding leads of nine points during the game. There were 10 ties and 14 lead changes during the contest that was tied at the half and at the end of regulation.

Western came out of the gate on fire and quickly built a 19-10 lead with 13:33 remaining in the first half.  The Griffins bounced back with a 9-1 run to cut the deficit to 20-19 at the 10:31 mark and they would take the lead at 27-26 with 4:16 remaining in the first stanza.  The game would eventually head into intermission with the score level at 32-32.

Trailing 48-42 with 13:48 to play in regulation, Westminster put together a 19-4 run to open up a 61-52 lead with 4:07 to play.  Refusing to go away, Western continued to battle and behind five quick points from Tyler Hurley it was back to a five point game with 2:37 remaining.  Westminster would shoot 6-of-7 at the foul line in the final 2:06 only to watch Hurley make a three with 5.7 seconds to play that would send the game into overtime.

The visitors scored the first four points of the extra session to lead 73-69 with 4:08 to play.  Jordan Hyater made a three for Westminster with 1:43 on the overtime clock to bring the game even for the eighth time of the evening.  After the Grififns made 3-of-4 at the foul line, Western's Hurley was fouled on a three point attempt with 10.6 second to play.  He stepped up and made all three to give the Bulldogs an 80-79 lead.  AJ Reilly then drove the length of the floor and pulled up and hit a 14-foot jumper with 3.2 seconds left to win the game for the Griffins.

Reilly finished the game with 13 points and scored all of them after intermission.  He was 4-of-6 shooting with two triples, three rebounds and three assists.  Reilly had eight of his points during the second half run that helped the team build the nine-point advantage.

The Griffins shot 48.1% form the floor in the game, including 50% in the second half.  They had 18 assists and only eight turnovers, with just four of those miscues coming after intermission.  Westminster scored 38 points in the paint while getting 36 points form the bench.  They held UMW to 41.9% shooting and turned 12 Western turnovers into 16 points.

Jake Orchard led Westminster with 14 points and also finished with a career-high five assists.  Hayter scored 12 points with two makes from beyond the arc and Ben Walker scored 11 points with five blocked shots.  Jordan Hamilton provided the Griffins with a nice spark off the bench scoring four points while collecting six rebounds and three blocks.

Hurley led the Bulldogs with 21 points and nine rebounds.  He was a perfect 4-of-4 from beyond the arc and 9-for-9 at the foul line.  Brandon Brown and Kyle Erickson added 16 points apiece.

The Griffins will look to snap a three-game losing streak against Montana Tech when they welcome the Orediggers to Salt Lake City on Saturday.  The action will tipoff at 7:30 p.m. from the Behnken Field House and also be available on Griffins TV.