Grinnell, 11-5 in the Midwest Conference and 16-7 in all games, advances to the league tournament as the No. 2 seed and will play third-seeded Carroll College at 5 p.m. this coming Friday at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis. Illinois College finishes at 5-11 in the conference and 9-14 overall. David Arseneault ’09 had another double-double for the winners with 26 points and 11 assists. John Grotberg ’09 added 23 points, Bobby Long ’09 had 16 points and Mike Schmidt ’08 added 12 on 4-of-5 3-point shooting. Mitchell Neally had 22 points for the Blueboys.

The hosts went up by as many as 17 points twice in the first half before settling for the seven-point halftime lead. Grinnell kept chipping away and finally went ahead at 58-57 on Long’s trey with 16:07 remaining. But the hosts hung tight and came back, going up by as many as eight at 85-77 with 5:23 remaining. Illinois College was still up by seven with 3:42 left before a big Grinnell run. Alex McDonald ’11 started things with a layup and Schmidt hit a trey to make it a 93-91 Blueboy lead with 3:01 left. The Pioneers kept charging and eventually took a 95-94 lead on Grotberg’s layup with 2:07 left.

The game remained tight and Grinnell was up by a single point with :32 remaining when Arseneault made a free throw, Grotberg two more and Arseneault another pair for the final margin.