SPOKANE, Wash. -- Junior Yigit Arcan scored 18 points off the bench, and Lewis & Clark College men's basketball erased a nine-point halftime deficit to tie the game early in the second half, but top-seeded Whitworth pulled away for a 76-60 Northwest Conference semifinal victory Friday night at Whitworth Fieldhouse.
 
THE BASICS
 
Whitworth 76, Lewis & Clark 60
Lewis & Clark (13-13)
Whitworth (21-5)
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
 
Arcan shot 6 of 11 from the field with two 3-pointers and went 4 for 4 at the free-throw line. He added four rebounds and a block. Senior Andre Treadwell finished with 14 points, including three 3-pointers, and a team-high nine rebounds. Senior Kody Uyesugi scored seven points, and fellow senior Taien Jackson recorded six points, six rebounds, a steal and a block.
 
Uyesugi gave Lewis & Clark a 2-0 lead with a jumper 28 seconds into the game. Whitworth answered with an 8-0 run. Stephen Behil converted two free throws, Ben Nyquist added two free throws and a fast-break jumper, and Caden Bateman hit a jumper to make it 8-2.
 
The River Otters battled back throughout the first half. Arcan's 3-pointer off a steal trimmed the deficit to 8-5, and sophomore Darius Wilcher's triple tied the game at 14 with 9:06 left. Whitworth built an 11-point lead at 35-24 on a Kobe Parlin driving layup with 2:14 remaining. Sophomore Marcus Bast's driving layup with 31 seconds left cut it to 35-26 at halftime.
 
Treadwell opened the second half with back-to-back 3-pointers, and Uyesugi added another to cap an 11-0 run, stretching back to Bast's late first-half basket, that tied the game at 35 with 17:35 to play.
 
Lewis & Clark could not hold the tie. Whitworth scored four straight free throws to retake the lead at 39-35 and never trailed again. Bateman's hook shot made it 41-35. Wilcher answered with a layup, but a Nate Krohn driving layup pushed it back to 43-37. Back-to-back driving layups from Arcan cut the deficit to 45-41 with 11:44 left.
 
Whitworth's Colton Looney hit a 3-pointer to make it 53-45 with 9:51 remaining. Treadwell's dunk cut it to 53-47, but Whitworth answered with 16 of the next 19 points. A Behil 3-pointer extended the lead to 69-50 with 4:53 left, the largest margin of the game. Jackson's two free throws pulled Lewis & Clark within 11 at 69-58 with just over two minutes remaining, but the River Otters could not get closer.
 
Nyquist led Whitworth with 20 points and 11 rebounds. Behil scored 16 points, and Bateman added 12 points, nine rebounds and four blocks.
 
BY THE NUMBERS
 

• The River Otters forced 18 Whitworth turnovers and scored 19 points off those takeaways. Lewis & Clark committed just seven turnovers.
• Senior Justin White led the team with four steals, while Bast and sophomore Jake Rodriguez added two each.
• Lewis & Clark outscored Whitworth 30-28 in the paint and 29-18 off the bench.
• Seniors Khalil Glover-Dodson, TJ Muhammad, Jackson, Treadwell, Uyesugi and White all appeared in their final game in a Lewis & Clark uniform.

 
WHAT'S NEXT
 
The River Otters expect to return 10 players for the 2026-27 season, including seven who made at least 12 appearances this year.