SUPERIOR, Wis. -- UW-Platteville erased a 10-point halftime lead for the UW-Superior men's basketball team to claim the 12th-annual Merrill Thompson Classic presented by National Bank of Commerce championship with a 77-68 at Mertz Mortorelli Gymnasium on Saturday.
 
The Pioneers (2-0), who are receiving votes in the D3hoops.com preseason top-25 poll, outscored UWS, 44-25, after halftime, getting 14 points from Logan Pearson and 11 from Jack Huml in the second half. 
 
Superior (2-1) used a 13-0 run to take a 24-13 lead midway through the first half and extended its advantage to 16 points at 43-27 with 1:44 to play in the stanza on a 3-pointer from Reid Johnson (Chatfield, Minn./Chatfield).
 
UW-Platteville responded with 17 consecutive points, spanning halftime, to cut its deficit to 43-42 with three-and-a-half minutes gone in the second half, before the 'Jackets rebuilt their advantage to 11 at 57-46 with just over 11 minutes remaining. The Pioneers again rallied to knot the game at 60 when Pearson knocked two technical-foul free throws at the 7:15 mark. The teams traded buckets to 62-62, with Josef Fahrenholtz (Chatfield, Minn./Chatfield) scoring six consecutive points to give his team a 66-64 lead. Platteville's Ben Probst hit 3-pointer with 2:38 to play as the Pioneers took a one-point lead it would not relinquish the rest of the day.
 
Fahrenholtz scored a game-high 28 points on 11-for-17 shooting, including four treys, and grabbed seven rebounds. Johnson added 11 points and Ethan Rens (Dayton, Minn./Champlin Park) nine for the Yellowjackets. Pearson and Probst paced a group of five Platteville players in double figures with 20 and 17 points, respectively.
 
UWS shot over 53 percent from the field on the day, including 64 percent in the first half, but UWP held a 38-29 rebounding edge and scored 42 points in the paint to earn the win.
 
The Yellowjackets are back in action next Saturday at Bethel in a 3 p.m., tip at the Robertson Center.