SPOKANE, Wash. – Five players scored in double figures to lead the Whitworth men's basketball team to a 90-59 victory over visiting Benedictine on Thursday night.

The Pirates outscored the Eagles (1-1) 52-30 in the second half.

Whitworth stretched its first half lead to 13 when Colton Looney came off the bench and nailed two threes in back-to-back possessions to put the Pirates up 36-23. The Pirates forced seven turnovers and held the Eagles to 23.1% shooting from deep. Tanner Resch drew a foul just before the buzzer and made two free throws to trim the Whitworth lead to 38-29 lead at halftime.

The Pirates started the second half on a 16-6 run to push the score to 54-35 with 14:16 left to go. Stephen Behil made three of his four three-pointers during this run. Caden Bateman scored his first points as a Pirate after hitting a turnaround jump shot to make the score 62-39 at the 12-minute mark. Whitworth got out to its largest lead of the game (84-50) after Diego Jaques drew a foul and made two free throws with 5:03 left. Benedictine shot 31.0% in the second half to Whitworth's 57.1%.

Whitworth head coach Damion Jablonski was proud of the strides that the team made defensively and praised the performance of his role players.

"We did much better defending the dribble drive," Jablonski said. "It's great to see our bench guys come into their own and have an impact."

Colton Looney finished the game with 17 points and three rebounds off the bench on 7-10 shooting. Caden Bateman finished with eight points and four rebounds. Four other Pirates finished in double figures, including Garrett Long (10), Diego Jaques (13), Stephen Behil (14) and Jake Holtz who led with 15 points.

Tanner Resch led the Eagles with 12 points on 5-11 shooting and four rebounds.

The Pirates hit the road to square off against California Lutheran next Thursday.