NORTON, MA- The Wheaton College men's basketball team had its four-game winning streak snapped on Saturday, falling to Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), 84-69 in New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) play in Emerson Gymnasium. The Lyons are now 11-7 overall and 3-2 in the league, while the Engineers, who earned at least a share of the past five NEWMAC regular season titles and are receiving votes in the D3hoops.com national poll, improved to 14-3 and 5-0.

Wheaton started out with early momentum, scoring the game's first eight points by 17:47 of the opening half behind a strong effort on the glass, snagging five of the first six boards of the contest. Junior Jaxon Leo (Leesburg, VA/New Hampton School) hit a pair of free throws to cap the 8-0 run before freshman Anthony Weeks' (Fitchburg, MA/Worcester Academy) bucket made it 10-3 at 15:46.

WPI used a 9-0 run to go on top at 12-10, but Lyon freshman Bruno Naylor (Los Angeles, CA/Northfield Mount Hermon School) converted sophomore Anthony Coppola's (Watertown, MA/Watertown) feed to knot the contest at 12. However, the Engineers scored the next nine points over a 2:50 stretch, sparking a 32-10 run that gave them a 44-22 advantage with 1:51 remaining. WPI shot 10-of-18 during the big run, including going 3-of-6 from beyond the arc.

Naylor added three straight points during a 5-0 run near the end of the half, and the Lyons went into the locker room down by a 46-27 count. Leo was 6-of-6 at the charity stripe and had eight points, while Naylor was 3-of-3 for seven points. Wheaton had 16 turnovers to WPI's seven. The visitors were led by sophomore Kyle Nadeau's (Webster, MA/Bartlett) 11 points.

Sophomore Ryan Sasso's (Peabody, MA/Bishop Fenwick) personal 5-0 run brought the hosts within 46-32 early in the second half, and Weeks scored consecutive hoops that later made it 49-38 at 15:20. That was the first of three times Wheaton cut its deficit to 11 before freshman Brendan Degnan (Narragansett, RI/Bishop Hendricken) canned a three that closed the gap to 62-52 with 7:35 left.

WPI extended its advantage back to as many as 18, but Leo capped a 10-1 run with a three-pointer at 2:49, making it a 73-64 contest. However, the Engineers countered by hitting four straight free-throw tries, and the Lyons never again trailed by fewer than 10 points.

Coppola finished with a game-high-tying 17 points, while Leo had 12 points and ended up 7-of-8 at the charity stripe. Sasso added 10 points, while Degnan totaled nine. The Lyons committed only three turnovers in the second stanza while trying to rally and finished 19-of-23 on free-throw attempts.

The Engineers received a pair of 17-point efforts from reserves, with senior Jerome Kirkland (Boston, MA/John D. O'Bryant) and sophomore Jeffrey Robinson (Granby, CT/Granby Memorial) each reaching the total. Nadeau tallied 16 points and four assists, while senior Adam Lirette (Dover, NH/Dover) had 12 points behind an 8-of-10 showing at the charity stripe. WPI tripped up Wheaton's second-half comeback try with a 19-6 advantage on the glass, leading to a 33-23 showing for the game.

Wheaton hits the road for its next two games, both NEWMAC affairs. The Lyons take on Springfield College on Wednesday evening at 7:30 p.m.