No. 1 and No. 3 win in Men's Basketball Tournament Semis
FORT WAYNE, Ind. - (TOURNAMENT PAGE) - Top-seeded Indiana Tech and upset-minded Madonna won their respective semifinal games in the 2023 Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference (WHAC) Men's Basketball Tournament. Indiana Tech defeated No. 4 Rochester 85-73 and third-seeded Madonna eliminated No. 2 Lourdes on the road 88-78.
Madonna now travels to Indiana Tech on Tuesday, Feb. 28 for the tournament championship game. Both teams have qualified for the NAIA Men's Basketball Opening Round as Tech took the first automatic berth by winning the regular season and Madonna gets the second as the tournament final participant.
#1 Indiana Tech (27-3) def. #4 Rochester (20-10), 85-73
Up by two points (22-20) at the 11:00 mark, a layup by Lucas Lehrman sparked a 21-3 Indiana Tech run for a 43-20 Warrior lead. Anthony Cukaj broke the dry spell for Rochester with 3:05 left in the first half and started an 8-0 run for RU. With Tech up 47-28 to start the second half, Rochester chipped away at the lead. A dunk from James Ballard, Jr. inspired RU and the Warriors got as close as seven points Ballard hit a three at the 5:23 mark, but Josh Kline and Rog Stein hit back-to-back layups and Cory McKinney hit a three to push IT's lead to 14. McKinney hit four straight free throws down the stretch to keep the lead in double digits.
Stat Leaders
Points: Rog Stein 20 (IT); Gunner Walters 19 (RU)
Rebounds: Rob Stein 9 (IT); James Ballard, Jr., Stavros Polatoglou, James Fisher 4 (FU)
Assists: Gunner Walters 5 (RU); Grant Smith, Rog Stein 4 (IT)
#3 Madonna (23-7) def. #2 Lourdes (22-8), 88-78
Thanks to five three-pointers in less than six minutes, Madonna jumped to an early 19-7 only to see Lourdes reel off the next 10 points to pull to within one at the eight-minute mark. The Gray Wolves then took a two-point lead into half at 37-35 after Little Anderson scored his 11th point of the game. Lourdes pushed forward out of the break and enjoyed as much as a six-point advantage (66-60) with 9:30 on the clock until the Crusaders scored the next eight points and retook the lead on a bucket behind the arc by Henry Speight. It was all MU needed as the Crusaders got big scores from Speight and Mark Mettie down the stretch as part of a 10-0 run seal the win.
Stat Leaders
Points: Henry Speight 29 (MU); Little Anderson 23 (LU)
Rebounds: Mark Mettie 14 (MU); Joey Holifield, Little Anderson, Jackie Harris 6 (LU)
Assists: Henry Speight 5 (MU); Clif Snow 4 (LU)