BILLINGS, Mont. – Mike Gordy scored 27 points and took four charging calls to help the Lewis-Clark State College men's basketball team defeat Rocky Mountain College 76-67 on Saturday to clinch one of the top two berths to next week's Frontier Conference tournament. 

Depending on the outcome of Saturday night's Westminster-Carroll contest, the Warriors will either tie for the conference's regular season title or for second place.  However, because LCSC wins every tiebreaker, the Warriors are guaranteed no worse than the No. 2 seed for the tournament, which opens Wednesday in Butte, Mont. 

If Carroll defeats Westminster, LCSC will tie for the conference title and earn the No. 1 seed. If Westminster defeats Carroll, Westminster will be the No. 1 seed, while LCSC will be the No. 2 seed. The top two seeds play their first round games on Wednesday, and with a win, will get Thursday off before playing in the semifinals on Friday. The No. 3 and 4 seeds have to play on Thursday and win on three consecutive days without a break to claim the tournament title. 

The Warriors win the tiebreaking edge based on head-to-head competition. All teams that can tie for either first or second split with each other, except for LCSC and Westminster. Because LCSC swept Westminster, it has the best head-to-head record of all teams. 

LCSC, the defending conference champion, finishes the regular season at 19-9 overall and 10-4 in conference play. Rocky Mountain, which defeated the No. 24-ranked Warriors in Lewiston earlier this season, falls to 9-5 in conference play and 21-8 overall. Rocky Mountain can wind up anywhere from the No. 3-5 seed for the conference tournament. 

In Saturday's game, LCSC bucked its recent trend of slow starts and jumped out to a 17-5 lead with 11:34 left in the first half. By that time, Gordy had six points and took three charging calls against RMC. 

LCSC opened the margin to 39-24 at halftime, and although the Bears cut the margin to 58-53 with 4:03 remaining, the Warriors responded with a pair of buckets by Gordy.   A 3-pointer helpd RMC cut the margin to 66-59 with 1:09 late, but the Bears were forced to foul and the Warriors converted down the stretch to preserve the win. 

Defense set the tone in the game for the Warriors as they effectively used a zone in the first half to hold RMC to 8of-32 from the field in the opening 20 minutes, including an 0-for-15 mark from the 3-point line. 

Gordy, a 6-foot-5 senior forward from Denver, showed why he was the co-MVP of the conference last season. He had 10 points in the first half and then came through with some clutch baskets and scored 17 points in the final 20 minutes. 

Napoleon Gordon scored 15 points for LCSC, while Brian Duckworth added 13 points. Justin Fraser and Jonathan Daly had eight points apiece. 

RMC had four players in double figures. Alvis Dowlies led the way with 18 points, but the team's leading scorer Chas Sukut, who entered the game averaging nearly 19 points per outing, was held to four points.