ROCHESTER, Mich. - David DuBois matched a career-high with 20 points as Western Illinois dropped its second-straight game on the road, 91-82 at Oakland.

Delvon Johnson sparked the Leathernecks (12-16, 7-10 The Summit League) early on by scoring eight of the first 12 points of the game and helping to build a 12-5 lead. The Golden Grizzlies (15-12, 10-6 The Summit League) fought back to take the lead with 8:02 left in the first half at 23-22. The Leathernecks grabbed the lead back when James Washington hit a deep three-pointer to give Western a 31-29 lead, only to see Oakland tie it up on the ensuing possession. Western again regained the lead by the three-ball when Josh Rivers hit a trey to make it 35-33. Eric Kangas answered with a three of his own to give the lead back to the Golden Grizzlies at 36-35. Chris Gonzalez's three put the Leathernecks back on top 38-36. Oakland scored five of the final seven points in the half for a 41-40 advantage at the end of the first half.

Gonzalez hit a three to give Western a 43-41 lead out of the break. Oakland then rattled off a 15-5 run for a 56-48 advantage. DuBois silenced the run on a three-point play with 15:07 left in the game to make it a 56-51 deficit. The Golden Grizzlies then built the advantage to double-digits, leading by an many as 11 at 66-55 with 12:14 left to play. A DuBois layup off a Larry Dumas feed in transition brought it to 68-61. Oakland responded by building its lead out to as many as 15 on two separate occasions. DuBois cut it back to single digits on a put back to make it a 85-76 with 3:32. The Golden Grizzlies were able to close out the game and hand Western its second-straight loss on the road.

"If I'm going to lose a game, I want it to be like this," said Western Illinois head coach Derek Thomas. "We executed well and did all the little things we needed to win. But we let them shoot twice as many free throws as us and we're not going to win when that happens."

Also in double-figures for Western was Washington with 18, while Johnson chipped in a career-high 10 points. Derek Nelson led the attack for Oakland with 24 points.

"We have pride," added Thomas. "We know that we're a better team than we've shown. The effort we brought tonight was what we needed, but all year we've been saying that you can play even with a team on the road, you simply have to be better."

The Leathernecks out shot the Golden Grizzlies 53 percent (29-of-55) to 45 percent (25-of-56). Western struggled on the glass all night, losing a 39-25 battle of the boards.

"When they're are shooting a lot of long shots, they're going to get a lot of long rebounds," Thomas said of the rebounding battle. "They were more physical than us and we just didn't do a good job of battling back with them."

Western was without captain David Jackson, who was unable to participate after suffering a concussion during Wester's loss at IPFW Thursday night.

"There's no question we were missing (Jackson) tonight. He's one of out top defenders and rebounders and you could see that we were missing him out there."

The regular season closes out Saturday, March 1, when Western heads to IUPUI for a 6 p.m. matchup.