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Posting Up - Scoreboard - Top 25 - Features - Notables - Team of the Week - Live Audio |
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About the 2001 Division III |
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Calvin
89, Defiance 78 That all changed Thursday evening as the Knights pulled away for an 89-78 victory over the visiting Yellow Jackets (17-11) in a first round tournament game in front of more than 4,000 fans at the Calvin Fieldhouse. Calvin (23-4) advances to second round play where it will travel to Ohio Northern (24-2) in a Saturday night contest at 7:30 pm at Ohio Northern's King Horn Convocation Center. Saturday's game will be the sixth meeting between Calvin and Ohio Northern in men's basketball including the third in NCAA III Tournament play. Ohio Northern has won both prior NCAA III Tournament meetings. In 1980, Ohio Northern defeated Calvin 92-90 in a Great Lakes Regional semifinal In 1993, the Polar Bears defeated defending national champion Calvin 67-56 in a national quarterfinal game in Emory, Va. Ohio Northern continued on to win its first-ever national championship in men's basketball. On Thursday night, Calvin defeated a Defiance team that had chased the Knights the past two years for the MIAA title. Formerly a member of the MIAA and now a member of the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference (HCAC), Defiance brought a six-game win streak into Thursday night's contest. Calvin opened Thursday night's game with a bang, rolling out to a 15-2 lead four minutes into the contest. Defiance responded with a 20-9 run over the next eight minutes to creep to within two points at 24-22. Defiance would later tie the game on two occasions late in the first half but would never take the lead as the Knights used a layup from freshman Chris Prins and a three-pointer by sophomore Bryan Foltice to take a 43-39 halftime lead. In the second half, Calvin used an 8-0 run to build a 53-44 lead at the 16:03 mark. Defiance answered with a 7-2 run to cut the gap to four at 55-51 with 12:34 to play. Calvin then produced a 16-5 scoring run over the next five-and-half minutes to take a 71-56 lead. Foltice scored nine points during the Calvin scoring surge while senior guard Nate Burgess also connected on a momentum-building triple to help the Knights build the 15-point edge. Back-to-back triples from senior Jason Hervey allowed Defiance to cut the gap to 71-64 with 6:11 to go but Calvin was able to seal the game by hitting 16-of-19 free throw attempts inside the final six minutes of play. Defiance hit 16 of its first 18 free throw attempts but went just 1-for-6 at the line over the final 7:21 of regulation. Foltice led all scorers with 22 points, connecting on 9-of-14 from the field including 3-for-5 from three-point range. Prins was also huge for the Knights as he sliced and diced his way for 19 points while grabbing 13 rebounds to rack up his first career double-double. The rebounding effort was also a career-high for Prins. Sophomore Jeremy Veenstra also had a double-double effort for the Knights as he collected 12 points and 11 boards for his 14th career double-double. Senior center Josh Tubergen also had 11 points for the Knights. Defiance was led in scoring by junior guard Eric Viney who pumped in 20 points while also grabbing 10 rebounds and dishing out four assists. Kill also had a double-double effort with 10 points and a game-high 16 rebounds. Sophomore Mike Kurdziel had 17 points off the bench for the Yellow Jackets while Hervey added 11 points. Calvin finished with a 43.8% field goal clip (32-for-73) while Defiance shot 35.1% (27-for-77) overall, shooting below 40 percent in both the first and second half. |
Rankings and links to all D-III teams
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