Senior Cole Darrow scored 20 points, while sophomore Kennedy Drey followed with 19 points and nine rebounds, as the Buena Vista men's basketball team got is Iowa Conference schedule off to a solid start with a 78-70 road victory at Loras College on Wednesday night.

Darrow and Drey combined to go 17-of-26 overall from the field with Drey playing a team-high 33 minutes.  Senior Grady Gallagher was also in double figures as he matched a career-high with 11 off the bench, including 3-of-4 from downtown.  He also dished out a pair of assists and had two steals.

Junior Nick Clark had an off shooting night, going just 1-of-10, but did chip in by dishing out a game-high six assists.

As a team, BVU shot 57 percent from the field, including 8-of-21 from long range.  The team made just 10 trips to the charity stripe and made only four.

Loras scored nine of the game's first 11 points and led 16-11 midway through the first half before the Beavers slowly began to sieze control.  Clark made his only bucket to make it a 16-15 contest before Darrow went off for 11 straight points to give BVU a 26-21 lead with 5:44 left in the half.  That lead continue to grow to 33-26 after a three-pointer by senior Brett Heitkamp at the 3:14 mark.

Gallagher buried a three-pointer to push the lead into double-digits for the first time at 38-27 with 2:17 left as the Beavers took a 38-33 lead into the half.

BVU took control early in the second half, building a 12-point lead after a long range bucket by senior Alex Savage.  The Duhawks, however, stormed right back to within five at 56-51 only to see the Beavers get the lead back to double-digits when Drey buried a three-pointer with 6:53 remaining.

Loras got within 67-60 before Gallagher later gave BVU its largest lead of the night at 75-62 with his final triple of the contest and only 1:41 left.  From there, the Duhawks were unable to get any closer than eight.

The Beavers, this year's favorite to win the league title, has now won four straight games to improve to 8-4 (1-0 IIAC) on the year.  They will go after their fifth straight on Saturday afternoon with a 4:00pm tip-off at Simpson College (5-7, 0-1 IIAC).