ST. LOUIS - Saint Louis sophomore guard Kevin Lisch scored 26 points and senior center Ian Vouyoukas scored a season-high 19 in his final regular season home game as the Billikens rolled past Richmond 78-68 in Atlantic 10 Conference action Wednesday night at Scottrade Center. Sophomore Tommie Liddell neared a double-double with 16 points and a game-high nine rebounds. The Billiken improve to 18-11 (8-7 A-10) on the year, their most wins since the 2003-04 team posted 19 wins.
Vouyoukas, who was able to draw a pair of early fouls in the opening minutes, combined with Lisch to score the first seven points of the game and establish the early tempo. Junior Bryce Husak and Liddell nailed back-to-back buckets, but a 3-pointer from Richmond's Jarhon Giddings pulled the Spiders to within 11-9 at the 11:55 mark.
Saint Louis, which completed its regular season home schedule with a 13-2 record, responded with a 9-0 run that included 4-of-4 free-throw shooting and a Liddell 3-pointer. A trey by junior Dwayne Polk built SLU's lead to 27-12, but Richmond did not let SLU run away with it early. The Spiders took advantage of two SLU turnovers to notch four straight points and pull to within 11 with four minutes left in the first half.
Lisch drilled two consecutive treys from the right corner late in the half to stretch the Billikens lead to 38-21 at halftime. Lisch led all scorers at the break with 16 points, just five points shy of Richmond's scoring output, and corralled six rebounds including four on the offense end.
Junior Luke Meyer, who received stitches next to his right eye after a first-half collision, put SLU's first points on the board in the second half. He converted a traditional three-point play to push the Bills to a 20-point advantage, their largest lead of the contest to that point. Vouyoukas scored the next five points on a dunk and a tip-in, which resulted in another Billiken traditional 3-point play, to increase SLU's lead to 46-24 with 16:49 remaining in the game.
Even though they trailed by more than 20 for a healthy portion of the second half, the spirited Spiders relied on 3-point shooting in their attempt to claw back. Brian Morris hit a trey with 7:53 left, and Duncan McLean and Ryan Butler also hit 3s as UR pulled to within 66-51 with 3:46 remaining in the game.
After a Liddell coast-to-coast layup off a steal and five straight points from Lisch put the Billikens up by 18 with three minutes left, Richmond went on a 8-0 run to pull within 10 with less than a minute remaining. Morris' NBA-range 3-pointer with 44 ticks left cut the UR deficit to just nine, but the Billikens converted on 5-of-6 free throws, including the first point of senior Wendell Bennett's career, in the waning moments to seal the 78-68 victory.
In addition to Lisch's game-high 26 points, he pulled down a career-high eight rebounds. Meyer contributed nine points, which included 5-of-5 from the line. The Billikens shot 49 percent from the field, 50 percent from beyond the arc and 89 percent from the charity stripe.
Saint Louis closes out its regular season at Dayton on Sat., March 3. The game tips at 6 p.m. (CT) and will be televised in St. Louis on CW 11/KPLR.
