GRINNELL, Iowa – The weather may have been cold outside, but the Grinnell College men's second-half shooting touch was plenty hot.
 
The Pioneers swished a string of seven consecutive 3-pointers without a miss and nine shots overall in the second half to pull away from Cornell College for a 119-99 victory at Darby Gymnasium Wednesday night.
 
After shooting 35.3 percent from 3-point land in the first half and leading 52-50 at intermission, the Pioneers scorched the nets with 19-of-36 shooting from beyond the arc in the final 20 minutes for 52.8 percent.
 
The Pioneers' total of 31 3-pointers in the game is tied for sixth in program history.
 
The scoring workload was spread out for Grinnell. Julian Marx '17 finished with 27 points after having just six at halftime. He drained 9-of-17 shots from 3-point land.
 
Vinny Curta '19 added 18 points, Jacob Ekstrand '18 had 15 with the help of 5-of-9 shooting from the beyond the arc and Mike Porter '17 tallied 12 points to go along with five assists and three steals.
 
Ky-Sean Johnson '19 and Nick Curta '17 had 11 points each, while Curta also recorded two blocks. Ikaika Phillip '18 came up with a career-high five steals and Sean Cullinane '18 a career-best three steals as Grinnell had 19 for the game.
 
With the win, Grinnell stayed perfect in the MWC at 3-0 and improved to 6-2 overall while extending its winning streak to five games. Cornell fell to 1-2 in the league and 3-3 in all games.
 
A tight battle in the first half led to a two-point Grinnell edge at halftime. Cornell led by two early in the second half when the Pioneers went on a string of five consecutive 3-pointers, three by Marx, one by Phillip and another from Ekstrand to make it a 67-58 Grinnell lead.
 
The Pioneers later led by seven before getting hot again, going on a 26-9 run with nine consecutive makes in a four-minute span, with eight of them treys.
 
Cullinane hit two 3-pointers in a row, followed by treys from Ekstrand, Gus King '18 and Johnson for an 87-69 lead.
 
Marx and Nick Curta then added 3-pointers, Nick Curta hit a layup and Ekstrand drained a 3-pointer for a 98-74 edge with 9:36 remaining. Grinnell never looked back from there.
 
Grinnell closes out its pre-winter break slate Saturday with a contest at Lawrence University, beginning at 3 p.m.