SUPERIOR, Wis. - Minnesota Morris followed up a win in their home conference opener with a victory in their first conference road game as the Cougars defeated UW-Superior, 81-72, Saturday afternoon in UMAC men's basketball action.

Noah Grove led the Cougars with 28 points in their game against Crown Wednesday. He nearly equaled that Saturday with 27 points to once again lead the squad.

While Grove helped bring the Cougars back from a five-point first half deficit with a game-tying 3 to make it 17-17, it was freshman Trent Jerome who gave the Cougars the lead with back-to-back 3s that made it 23-19 with 6:56 left in the opening half. Later Jeremy Halverson and Grove hit 3s in succession to start a UMM 13-2 run. A James Sukanen lay-in gave the Cougars their biggest at 41-28. They took a 41-30 lead going into the locker room.

The Yellowjackets came out firing and scored the first eight points of the second half to quickly trim UMM's lead to 3 at 41-38. Trey Heinsuis ended their run with a lay-in and started a 7-0 Cougars spurt to get the lead back up to double digits at 48-38. The Cougars would maintain a healthy edge and head back to Morris with a conference road win.

Grove had a near double-double with nine rebounds. CD Douglas scored 19 points while making all 11 of his free throws. Jerome missed just one shot from the floor while scoring 13.

Minnesota Morris (2-7, 2-0 in UMAC) returns home to face St. Scholastica next Saturday at 3 p.m. at Jim Gremmels Court.