Cartmill, taking a feed from Steege in the closing seconds, drilled a three-pointer as a capacity crowd of 1,775 points exploded in Knights Gymnasium, leading the Knights to their sixth straight win and a three-way tie for first in the Iowa Conference standings. His trey, with one second left, was part of a hard-nosed 17-point, seven-rebound, three-assist and one-steal evening.
Steege, dropping in 16 points, joined Wartburg’s top 10 all-time in scoring, moving to 1,312 points for his career. Schmidt, ending with 15 points, seven rebounds and two blocked shots, became the 28th member of the school’s 1,000-point club.
The visiting Kohawks, dropping their first league game and falling to 12-3 overall, gave the home team a strong test. Coe led 27-19 midway through the first half before the Knights ended the stanza on a 16-5 run and led 35-32 at the break. Wartburg appeared on the verge of putting the game away in the second half, building a 64-51 lead with 7:30 remaining, but Coe came right back with a 20-6 stretch and led 71-70 when junior forward Mike Kilburg, concluding a 32-point night, hit a lay-up with 15 seconds left. Steege took the in-bounds pass, drove up the floor and set up Cartmill’s heroics.