02/24/07

With their 92-90 overtime win over Northwestern College (21-6, 12-2 UMAC) on Saturday night in the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference tournament final, St. Scholastica (14-13, 9-5 UMAC) won their second tournament title in a row and third in four seasons.

Last season’s championship victory came a little easier for the Saints as they beat Bethany Lutheran College — the opponent they beat in a semifinal game this season — by 19 in Duluth. The 2007 championship would prove to be much tougher.

Northwestern came out on fire in the first half of this year’s championship game, breaking out to a 10 point lead over the Saints in less than seven minutes of action in the first half.

The No.-1 seeded Eagles never trailed throughout the opening 20 minutes and shot 56 percent from the field in building an 11 point lead entering the intermission.

The largest halftime deficit the third-seeded Saints had previously overcome this season on their way to a win was six points in a victory at Presentation College on January 19 of this year, so they had their work cut out for them.

The Eagles delayed the Saints’ comeback as the second half opened by continuing their torrid shooting, eventually opening a 15 point lead on the defending tournament champions.

St. Scholastica cut into that margin but Northwestern came right back and again led by 15, now with only 13:08 to play.

The Saints had never been behind by so many points and come back for a win this season but co-captains Brady Zubke and Will Maupins began to pick up the St. Scholastica scoring, and then fellow co-captain Derek Johnson canned consecutive 3-point field goals to trim the lead to only three.

Northwestern would build the lead back up to seven but once again the Saints cut back into the margin until, with 3:50 left on the game clock, the Saints found themselves trailing only 77-76.

A Zubke steal and short jumper then gave the Saints their first lead of the game.

Northwestern regained the lead their next time down the floor but another Zubke basket would put the Saints on top 80-79 with 2:24 remaining.

Each team missed opportunities over their next possessions but a Northwestern foul by Dave Zuleger put St. Scholastica’s Derek Johnson on the line with 75 seconds remaining.

The conference’s top free throw shooter coolly sank both attempts and put the Saints ahead by three.

With time winding down under 30 seconds the Eagles turned the ball over but a missed 3-point attempt from the Saints allowed the regular season champions one final pportunity.

Josh Strelecki made the most of that chance and nailed a 3-pointer with only four ticks on the clock to tie the score at 82-82 and eventually send the game to overtime.

The Saints and Eagles returned to their benches, waiting to settle not only the season series after each team defeated the other as an impolite visitor, but now also the 2007 UMAC tournament.

The Saints had played three overtime games already this season and won two of them, one of which was the Presentation game that they fought back from six down at the half. Meanwhile, this would be Northwestern’s first time playing past regulation time all season.

Who better to get the extra period rolling than Johnson who hit his sixth 3-pointer of the game to open the scoring and gave the Saints the lead.

Northwestern was able to cut the lead to one, in fact four times, but St. Scholastica rebuffed them each time and found themselves up 92-90 with less than 10 seconds remaining.

Fittingly to how the game had been played so far, Northwestern got not one, but two final attempts to win or tie the game as Mike Anderstrom grabbed the rebound off a missed 3-pointer by teammate Daniel Hanson but missed the put back attempt and with that, the Saints had their second consecutive UMAC Tournament title.

For the game, Northwestern shot 51 percent from the field while the Saints shot 46 percent. But St. Scholastica committed only four turnovers compared with 14 by the Eagles which led to 13 Saints points.

The 11 point halftime deficit, and 15 point second half deficit were the largest leads the Saints had overcome all season long.

For the second year in a row, a Saint picked up the tournament MVP honor as senior Derek Johnson’s combined his 24 point championship performance with 15 points in the semifinal to grab the award that Andy Schmitz earned in last season’s title run at the tournament. Johnson finishes his career at St. Scholastica with 1,364 points, fourth on the team’s all-time scoring list.

Will Maupins was one of four other Saints that finished in double-figures in the championship game adding 17 points, seven rebounds and 6 assists in the win. His 454 career rebounds — after only two seasons at St. Scholastica following his transfer to the school entering his junior season — is seventh on the Saints’ all-time list and he closes out his career with two triple-doubles and 10 double-doubles.

Zubke followed his game-high 24 points in the semifinal win over Bethany with 19 points in the championship victory, also adding five rebounds and six assists in the defeat of the Eagles.

Eric Langdon and Jesse Taylor were the other two to reach double-digits as each added 10 points in the winning effort.