Home  Basketball (M) Men's Basketball - Bears Stun WPI; Earn a spot in the Big Dance
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Men's Basketball - Bears Stun WPI; Earn a spot in the Big Dance |
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 Seventh-Seeded Coast Guard won its first NEWMAC Championship and earned a berth to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1979.
The Bears (14-13), become the first 7th seed to win the NEWMAC tournament and snapped WPI’s chances of making it three NEWMAC men’s titles in a row. The Engineers, ranked 13th in the nation, fall to 22-3. Sunday night, WPI earned an at-large bid while Coast Guard earned the automatic bid, the brackets will be released on Monday morning.
In such a close, well-played defensive game, it was assured that this one would go right down to the last second.
With 2:30 remaining and the Engineers trailing by one, Adam Lirette
missed a 3-pointer that would give WPI a two-point lead. But the quick-thinking guard was able to dash into the paint to corral the rebound and put it up and in to give WPI a 62-61 lead.
Lirette then came up with a steal on the other end, but the turnover led to a WPI turnover, as Ryan Cain shuffled his feet one time too many.
Coast Guard’s Jeff Prebeck came back the other way and used a
short babyhook to reclaim the lead for the Bears.
Cain came right back down and gave WPI the lead, but Steve Blum
got his own rebound on the next trip and put it up and in while being fouled by WPI’s Jerome Kirkland. He calmly sank the freebie to complete the old fashioned three-point play, giving Coast Guard a 66-64 lead, a lead it would not relinquish the rest of the way.
Cain then lofted a 3-point attempt from the nearside corner, but it caromed off the side of the iron and into the hands of Eric Hudson, who was immediately fouled with 35 seconds left. He hit his two free throws to make it 68-64. Cain would be fouled six seconds later by Prebeck as he went toward the hoop, and he hit both shots for the final WPI points.
Hudson was 4 for 4 from the foul line in the final 32 seconds including a pair with 8.2 seconds left to ice the game.
There were 20 lead changes in this game, including five in the last three minutes.
For Coast Guard, Al Sowers had a game-high 23 points, shooting
4-of-8 from 3-point land. Steve Blum added 14, while Grant Johnson added
11 including a pair of 3-pointers to give him a school record 80 trifectas this season. Jim Hiltz held the record with 76 three-pointers in the 2000-01 season.
Prebeck, who leads the nation with 12.4 rebounds per game, finished with a game-high eight rebounds as he set the single-season school record with 333 rebounds. The record was held by Mark Harris, who grabbed 326 boards in the 1994-95 season.
For WPI, Cain led the team with 19 points and five assist while Antoine Coleman scored 18 points. Lirette also had five assists for the Engineers.
Coast Guard finished last in conference play, going just 2-10 in NEWMAC play this season, but won three games in five days beating second-seeded Babson, sixth-seeded Wheaton and top-seeded WPI for the improbable championship.
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