The search continues for the Kirkwood men's basketball team.

The search for a productive starting lineup. The search for an effective rotation. The search for success.

The Eagles held off the University of Dubuque junior varsity, 71-63, Thursday night at Johnson Hall, but Coach Bryan Petersen is still searching for the right answers with the conference race on the horizon.

"Obviously this wasn't a great overall effort from our group," said Petersen. "We won, but it's on me. We just didn't have the group ready to go tonight. Not a great effort."

Kirkwood has pounded a lot of JV teams over the years, but this was a competitive game from start to finish. The Eagles led by only one point at halftime, 34-33, and were never able to put the Spartans away despite opening a 13-point lead.

Just when it looked like the game was in the bag at 67-54, Dubuque scored nine straight points to make it 67-63.

Kirkwood (9-4) was playing its first game in three weeks following the holiday break, which could have explained why the Eagles did not function smoothly for much of the night.

In addition, it's hard for some players to turn on the jets when they are facing a junior varsity team.

"But that's no excuse," Petersen said. "We've still got a game to play and we've still got to work to get better.

"We've got to find what the right lineup is," he continued. "We do have some variety, which is nice. But we have to figure out what the best one is and we have to start rolling with it."

Doug Wilson led Kirkwood with 17 points. Chris King scored 13 points, Carlo Marble netted 10 points and Kyle Arrington had 10 rebounds.

DUBUQUE JV (63): Bentley 1 0-0 3, Parson 2 0-0 4, Soenksen 5 1-1 14, Daniels 5 0-0 12, Hundley 1 2-2 4, Squires 3 0-0 9, Cash 1 0-0 3, Harper 4 0-0 10, Barker 2 0-0 4, Bennett 0 0-0 0. Totals 24 3-3 63.

KIRKWOOD (71): Kale 1 0-0 2, Meeker 2 0-0 5, King 4 2-2 13, Wilson 8 1-2 17, Arrington 4 0-0 8, Stansbury 2 2-2 7, Marble 4 0-0 10, Small 3 0-1 7, Ross 0 0-0 0, Johnson 0 0-0 0, Storey 1 0-0 2. Totals 29 5-7 71.

Halftime - Kirkwood 34, Dubuque JV 33. 3-point goals - Dubuque JV 12 (Soenksen 3, Squires 3, Daniels 2, Harper 2, Bentley 1, Cash 1), Kirkwood 8 (King 3, Marble 2, Meeker 1, Stansbury 1, Small 1).