02/23/07

Behind four Saints in double-figures, led by Brady Zubke's 24 points, the Saints pulled one game closer to repeating as the UMAC Tournament champions with a 72-70 Friday night semifinal victory over Bethany Lutheran College in St. Paul.

The No-3 seeded Saints led from the opening tip through to the intermission, building as large as a 13 point lead over the second seeded Vikings before Bethany Lutheran would go on a late run to trim the lead to only one at the half, 33-32.

Jon Monson from Bethany opened the scoring in the second half with a quick jumper as the Vikings took their first lead of the game and held on to it for more than 12 minutes.

Down by one with 7:08 to play, Zubke hit only the first of two free throws to knot the score at 53-53, but a Will Maupins steal the next time Bethany brought the ball downcourt resulted in a Jesse Taylor jumper that sent the Saints back in front.

Though the Vikings would cut the Saints lead to one on five separate occasions, the Saints held on to their lead and senior Derek Johnson was able to ice the game with a pair of free throws as the clock ticked down to double-zeros.

Zubke's 24 was the game-high and was his second highest scoring output of his three-year Saints career. He also pulled down four rebounds and added both a block and a steal to his stellar performance in the Saints win.

Maupins finished the night with 13 points and a game-high 10 rebounds to record his eleventh double-double of the season, while Johnson scored 15 to raise his career total to 1,340 points, fourth on the Saints' all-time scoring list.

Taylor was the fourth Saint reaching double-digits with 14 in the semifinal victory.

The Saints shot well throughout the game -- 52 percent from the field -- but were on fire in the second half as they hit 14-of-23 shots for a red hot 61 percent.

Bethany Lutheran (14-11, 11-3 UMAC) out rebounded the Saints 38 to 31 but they also had more turnovers (19 to CSSs 14) which led to 20 St. Scholastica points off turnovers.

St. Scholastica (13-13, 9-5 UMAC) will take on the winner of the Northwestern College vs. Martin Luther College semifinal in the tournament championship game on Saturday, February 24th at Northwestern's Ericksen Center in St. Paul. Tip off of the championship game is scheduled for 5 p.m.