FOREST GROVE, Ore. – The Pacific Lutheran University men's basketball team made it back-to-back nights with road league victories on Saturday as they easily dispatched Pacific University 97-84 in their second game in as many nights. 
 
"It was a great weekend for our program," said PLU Head Coach Chad Murray.  "We got two hard-fought wins on the road that were both really challenging.  Today, like yesterday, we were able to get off to a fantastic start.  I thought we came out focused on both ends of the floor.  We got tremendous contributions from Brandin Riedel and Shane McGaughey-Fick off the bench as well as solid play from our starters.  To accomplish what we want we have to have our bench come in and perform well.  Those two were great."
 
The Lutes (5-2, 2-0) didn't sweat the Boxers full court press or their deep shooting much as the visitors jumped out to a 15-2 lead and never looked back in the blowout of the home team.  Pacific would only get the lead to single digits on one more occasion in the first half and after PLU took a 19-point lead into the break, the lead ballooned to as many as 29 in the second stanza on a dunk by Jordan Thomas. 
 
PLU shot nearly 60 percent from the field on the evening (58.9%) and dominated the Boxers on the glass 34-25.  The Lutes also held firm in the face of constant pressure from Pacific and had just 17 turnovers to Pacific's 18. 
 
Seth Hall led all scorers with 29 points on 10-for-17 shooting and had a game-high 10 rebounds for a second straight double-double.  Tyler Ashmore poured in a career-best 18 points and Sean McCurdy came off the bench to score 17 points on an efficient 4-for-6 shooting from the field and 7-of-9 effort from the charity stripe. 
 
"These games are a mental and physical grind," said Murray.  "We did have a stretch in the second half after extending the lead to close to 30, where we gave them some life before putting the game away late.  We'll continue to work on that as we go.  Overall, we're really happy with these two wins on opening weekend of conference play."
 
The Lutes will look to make it four straight victories on Tuesday night when they host Portland Bible College at 7:00 p.m. inside Olson Gymnasium.