WALLA WALLA, Wash. – The expected battle between host Whitman College and visiting Lewis & Clark College didn't disappoint the nearly 300 fans in Sherwood Athletics Center Saturday night as the Whitties rallied from a nine-point second-half deficit to remain unbeaten by downing the Pioneers by a score of 87-80 in Northwest Conference men's basketball action.

Christian McDonald claimed half the points Whitman (6-0, 2-0 NWC) scored in the final 10 minutes of action, knocking down four 3-pointers during his 15-point barrage that doomed the upset hopes of the Pioneers (2-5, 0-2). McDonald, who finished with a game-high 27 points, also came away with an important defensive rebound on a missed Lewis & Clark trey in the final minute that would have trimmed the Whitties' lead to just one.

The Pioneers had battled back from trailing the home team throughout most of the first half, rallying from a nine-point deficit themselves, to head into halftime with a 44-40 advantage. That four-point margin grew to nine with Jason Luhnow's layup at the 10:29 mark of the second half.

That was when Whitman, not just McDonald, had finally had enough.

An Austin Butler steal turned into the first of those final 3's from McDonald, narrowing the deficit to 65-59 with just under 10 minutes remaining. Following an answering bucket from L&C it was Cedric Jacobs-Jones' turn to step up, as he drained a three from the top, left to pull the home team within seven.

Jacobs-Jones ripped down a defensive rebound at the other end of the court which turned into an Evan Martin layup to further cut into the Pioneers' lead.

Lewis & Clark picked up a pair of free throws to push its advantage back to seven, but the momentum had already been turned.

McDonald popped one from behind the arc near where Jacobs-Jones had done so three minutes earlier and then a foul on L&C sent Philip Chircu to the line for a pair of successful free throws that brought the Whitties to within a bucket, at 71-69.

Tough defense over  the next two minutes left both teams struggling for a basket but Carl Appleton broke through for a layup to up the Pioneers' lead to 73-69.

From that point on it was almost all Whitman, answering the call from the vocal fans who cheered every Whittie positive and cheered even louder with every L&C negative. The Whitties out scored the Pioneers 18-7 after Appleton's layup at the 4:30 mark, with McDonald taking credit for half of those points himself.

Along with McDonald's 27 points the Whitties picked up 19 from Tim Howell and 11 from Martin.

Proving how tightly contested the game was, Lewis & Clark's rebounding advantage for the night was just two boards, the teams differed in their number of turnovers by just two, each scored 11 second-chance points, and each totaled 10 fast-break points. Whitman owned the lead for 18 minutes and 49 seconds and Lewis & Clark was on top a total of 18 minutes and 44 seconds.

Still, the most important statistic on the night was up on the scoreboard in red lights as the seven-point spread made all the other stats moot.

Whitman steps away from league play for the rest of 2015, beginning with a 7 p.m. non-conference match-up Wednesday night at local rival Walla Walla University. A pair of non-league visitors come to Sherwood the following weekend and then the Whitties close out the first half of the schedule in California just before the New Year.