By Don Friday of the Stevens Point Journal

Three seniors played key roles here on Saturday night as the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point men's basketball team closed the books on the 1997-98 season with a come-from-behind 84-79 victory over UW-Stout.

The win at Johnson Fieldhouse enabled UWSP to secure a share of fourth place in the final Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference standings. UWSP (17-8) and UW-Whtitewater (16-9) both finished 9-7. Stout wound up 4-12 in the WIAC and 10-15 overall.

"This is the first time in 26 years of coaching I've ended the season with a win," said second-year UWSP coach Jack Bennett who spent many years in the high school ranks. "We had a good year even though we came up short with respect to our goal of getting back into the postseason play. We're proud to finish with 17 wins."

The Blue Devils, who lost to UWSP earlier in double overtime, again gave the Pointers all they could handle, leading most of the game.

"Stout had two of their best offensive games of the season against us," Bennett said. "The key for us was that we played better defense in the last seven to eight minutes."

Stout, which held a 39-37 halftime lead, boosted the margin to as high as 10 points four times in the second half, the last at 68-58 with 8:41 remaining.

The Pointers were still down by four at 75-71 with 4:01 left but a 3-point basket by senior guard Dan Denniston , layups by Derek Westrum and Brant Bailey gave UWSP a 78-77 lead with 1:42 to play.

Tim Schulte's layup put the Blue Devils back on top, 79-78, with 1:09 left but it was all Pointers the rest of the way.

Denniston, fouled on a 3-point try by Schulte, sank all three free throws to make it 81-79 with 52 seconds left.

After Jeremy Preston missed from the outside, the Pointers' Kurt Hoerman was fouled with :29 showing and sank one of two free throws for an 82-79 lead. Stout misfired again and Hoerman's layup at the other end wrapped up the scoring with four seconds left.

Bailey, a 6-7 sophomore, continued his strong play over the second half of the season by scoring 19 points in 18 minutes. He was 9 of 10 at the foul line.

Denniston, who had three treys, senior running mate Russ Austin and Westrum all scored 14 points for UWSP which hit 30 of 61 shots for 49 percent. Westrum had six rebounds while the two guards combined for eight assists.

Preston, who sank 9 of 14 shots, led Stout with 22 points.