With the victory, Calvin (7-3) advances to Thursday’s championship final against the host Falcons (4-6) of River Falls with a tip-off set for 9:00 p.m. (EST). UW-River Falls advanced to the championship game with a 78-74 win over St. Thomas (MN) in the other first round game Wednesday evening. Thursday’s championship game will mark the first-ever meeting between Calvin and UW-River Falls.
Wednesday’s contest between Calvin and Wartburg (6-3) marked just the second-ever meeting between the two Division III opponents with the only previous meeting coming in a national semifinal-quarterfinal game of the 1991 NCAA III Tournament.
Calvin won the 1991 NCAA III Tournament meeting 76-71 behind a torrid three-point shooting attack. In Wednesday’s victory, Calvin used a determined defensive effort down the stretch to pull out the win as it outscored Wartburg 8-0 over the final five minutes of regulation.
Wednesday’s game was a game of streaks as Calvin jumped out to a 19-12 lead in the opening eight minutes but Wartburg answered with nine unanswered points to take a 21-19 edge with eight minutes left in the half. The lead would then change hands six times with Wartburg taking the final lead of the half at 31-30.
Calvin then broke loose for a 15-2 scoring run in the opening eight minutes of the second half to build a 48-38 lead. Junior Joel Hoekstra swished a pair of three-pointers in the spurt while sophomore Josh Meckes punctuated the run with a slam dunk off an alley-oop pass in transition from junior Kyle Trewhella.
Wartburg would answer with one more run however, outscoring Calvin 12-2 over the next five minutes to creep to within a point at 51-50 with 7:30 left on the clock. Wartburg would close to within a point one more time, using a three-pointer from senior Jordan Atchison to make the score 56-55 with 5:22 remaining.
Wartburg would not score again though while Trewhella scored six of his game-high 19 points in the final 4:45 to put the game away for Calvin.
“I thought both teams showed the affects of a long layoff,” said Calvin men’s basketball coach Kevin Vande Streek of his team that was playing its first game in three weeks. “The thing that bothered me in the first 20 minutes was that Wartburg was the tougher of the two teams out there. We did a much better job of competing and playing hard in the second half. It wasn’t always pretty but we found a way to get it done through hustle and determination.”
Trewhella was one of two Calvin players to notch double-digits in scoring as Hoekstra had 10 points and four rebounds while senior point guard Ricky Shilts contributed eight points and six assists.
Junior Jason Steege led Wartburg in defeat with 15 points while junior Nate Schmidt picked up a double-double with 10 points and 11 rebounds.
Calvin shot 48.1 percent from the floor in the victory while holding Wartburg to 33 percent shooting including just 29 percent in the second half.
Calvin also continued to use the three-point shot to its advantage as it connected on nine of 21 attempts from beyond the arc for a 43 percent three-point clip while Wartburg connected on just 27 percent of its three-point attempts.
Calvin also won the battle of the boards as it held a 38-36 rebounding edge. DeVries and senior Brad Sall were strong contributors off the bench for Calvin with DeVries scoring four points and grabbing five rebounds while Sall had five points and five rebounds.