CCIW champion Augustana opened the second half with a 9-0 run and used deadly three-point shooting from Kirk Anderson to defeat Rowan (N.J.) 83-81 Friday night in a NCAA Division III semifinal game in Buffalo.
Augustana (25-6) will face Ohio Northern (27-2), a 74-73 winner over University of Massachusetts/Dartmouth, for the championship at 6 p.m. Saturday.
Rowan (28-2), the No. 1 seed from the Atlantic region, led 46-43 at halftime. But Anderson, who finished with 29 points, and West Aurora grad Aben Cooper scored seven of Augustana’s nine straight points to give the Vikings (24-6) the lead for good.
Former Glenbrook South star Brian Moe came off the bench to score 10 second-half points, all during a 13-7 run that stretched Augustana’s lead from 52-51 to 65-58 with 8 minutes 58 seconds remaining.
Keith Wood, who finished with 27 points, and Omar Foote, who added 15, helped Rowan trim the deficit to 74-72 with 1:42 left.
But Josh Thompson (10 points) drained a three-pointer, Rick Kelley hit four free throws and Cooper (12 points) broke free for a dunk to seal the victory. Adrian Matthew hit a three-pointer for Rowan with :02 left for the final margin.
Anderson was 6 for 7 from three-point range and now has 31 three-pointers in five tournament games, breaking the record set by Wisconsin-Whitewater’s Pat Miller in 1989. Augustana also set a standard for three-pointers by a team. The Vikings now have 51, four more than Whitewater hit en route to its championship in 1989.
Friday’s victory continued an impressive trend for Augustana, which knocked off its fifth straight conference champion.
– Michael Jordan isn’t the only athlete in the Chicago area who has had foot problems.
Willie Gausman, a senior at Lewis University, had to sit out the finals of the NCAA Division II Track and Field Championships, last Saturday at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, S.D., after she came down with bacterial infections in both feet.
Gausman had qualified for the 1,500-meter run on Friday with a time of 4:38.06 but developed blisters on her feet, which soon became infected.
“Willie had some rubbing from her shoes, and that caused the blisters,” said Lewis coach Jeff DeGraw. “You get blisters but they never get infected. It just hit her at the wrong time.”
Earlier this season, Gausman posted the fastest 1,500 meter time in the nation (4:32.69) among Division II runners. That mark still stands.
– Both ends of coach Larry Morford’s pencil get a workout during South Suburban College softball games. While the point endlessly colors in runs being scored, the eraser is necessary to track the movement of South Suburban’s versatile position players during a game.
“We ask the girls to play at least two positions, depending on the circumstances,” said Morford, who guided South Suburban to its first Region IV title last spring in his first season. “The more positions they can play makes the coach’s job a lot easier. It’s very important to have depth like that. You always have someone to step in in the event of an injury.”
Top returnees from last season’s 34-11 team that finished seventh nationally are Juanita Troncozo, Tracey Bauer, Lisa Piraro, Aimee Smith, and Vanessa Bloch. Newcomers include Chris Cullen, Cindy Stepanek, Trisha Gonzalez, Stacey Zarmebski, and Tricia Roye.
The Lady Bulldogs, ranked No. 1 in Region IV ahead of Kankakee and Du Page, open their season Friday against Lakeland College. It’s the first of 16 games in only nine days on a tour through southern Illinois.
