The Buena Vista men's basketball team saw a 15-point second half lead dwindle all the way down to just one late in regulation, but some clutch free-throw shooting down the stretch helped the Beavers come out with a big 69-67 road victory at Central College on Wednesday night.

BVU held a 36-33 halftime lead and came out strong to start the second half, building a 50-35 lead.  The Beavers seemed to be in control, but the Dutch were not about to go away.

Central held Buena Vista to only four points over the next eight minutes as the Dutch clawed its way back within 54-46 with 7:28 left.

A jumper by Nick Clark pushed the lead back to double digits, but the Dutch answered with consecutive layups to make ti 56-50 with 6:10 to go.  Senior Nick Wuebker made a pair of free-throws to keep it an eight-point advantage with just 5:30 left to play.

Four straight free-throws from the Dutch made it 58-54 before sophomore Kennedy Drey made a nice fade-away shot from the left baseline to extend the margin to six.

With each team virtually spending most of its time at the free-throw line over the final three minutes, Central closed the gap to 65-64 with 15 seconds left.

Senior Alex Savage calmly sank a pair to push the Beaver lead back to three at 67-64.  Central came back down and made good on its first attempt, but intentionally missed the second.  The ball was blown dead immediately after the attempt and BVU went on to keep possession after a lengthy delay and conversation by the officials.

Nick Clark went to the free-throw line for two free-throws and only two seconds left.  After missing on both attempts, the Dutch grabbed the rebound but the three-quarter shot was offline.

Darrow went on to score a team-high 14 points, including 6-of-10 at the free-throw line, to go along with seven rebounds.  Drey made 5-of-10 from the field and followed with 13 points and a team-best nine rebounds.  Clark made a pair of three-point buckets and chipped in with 12 points and two steals.

Savage made all four free-throws for his four points, while also grabbing four rebounds, dishing out four assists and chalking up four steals.

BVU shot 38 percent from the field and made 21-of-27 at the free-throw line.

Defensively, the Beavers held the defending league champions to only 30 percent from the field, including a 20.6 percent clip from long range.  They held two of the league's top three scorers (Nile Eckerman and Colby Taylor) to a combined 7-of-30 shooting.

BVU also out-rebounded the Dutch, 35-31, despite being edged, 14-8, on the offensive glass.

Buena Vista has now won three straight games and improves to 11-5 overall and 4-1 in conference play.  The Beavers, now tied with Coe College atop the league standings, will stay on the road to play at Wartburg College (10-6, 3-2 IIAC) on Saturday night in an 8:00pm tip-off.  The Knights were dealt a 74-51 road loss to the Kohawks on Wednesday.