| Mario Awasum had a big bucket that put Emory up by 10 points with 4:38 to play in the game. Photo by Ryan Coleman, d3photography.com |
By Patrick Coleman
D3sports.com
FORT WAYNE — Emory rallied from a halftime deficit and qualified for the Division III men’s basketball title game for the first time in program history as the Eagles defeated Christopher Newport, 72-58 in a national semifinal game at Allen County War Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
The Eagles (27-3) will face Mary Washington, which defeated Trinity (Conn.), 64-61 in the night’s other Division III national semifinal.
Emory used a 19-4 run to turn a nine-point first half deficit into a six-point second half lead, as Ben Pearce, Mario Awasum, Spencer Hall, Jair Knight and AJ Harris all had key roles to play in the rally.
“Spencer, Mario, they were huge, huge, huge, huge in the run,” said Pearce . “They came in and really gave us energy because I was struggling.”
Coming out of the locker room, Knight fed Mario Awasum in the paint with a pass that turned into a left-handed layup. Knight later hit a bucket in the paint to tie it at 39, then put back his own miss to take a 41-39 lead. AJ Harris then stole the ball from Collin Hines at the top of the arc and sprinted the other way with it to finish with a layup.
Meanwhile, shots stopped falling for Christopher Newport (25-6). After the Captains had shot a modest 37 percent from the floor in the first half, they missed 14 of 16 in a second half stretch that saw Emory extend its lead to 69-55 before the game ended up in free throws.
Pearce struggled at times from the floor, missing one of two free throws and rushing a three-pointer. But the team got a lift when Knight returned with five and a half minutes to play, playing with four fouls. He hit a big three at the top of the key to make it 58-49, then Awasum dug an errant pass off the floor and turned it into a three-point play to make it a 12-point game. Pearce then fed Spencer Hall for a baseline jumper and the game began to get out of reach.
“While I’m on the bench, I think we all are each other’s biggest fans,” Knight said. “Obviously I want to be in the game and have a bigger role. When situations like this happen, now I’m the biggest fan and like Spencer, AJ, it is just an opportunity to really pour in to my young guys and really give them the confidence.”
Christopher Newport was more than game to hang with the Eagles in the first half, as not only did the Captains hang in, they led by as many as nine late in the period before Emory scored the final six points to go to the locker room with the score CNU 35, Emory 32. Ben Pearce scored eight points in the first two-plus minutes, then was held to just four points the rest of the half as CNU fought back, including two big three-pointers from Toa Hollenbeck and another from Tyson Henderson to help the Captains flip an 8-2 deficit into a 13-12 lead.
Even when Hollenbeck left with two fouls and Isaiah Dozier hobbled off with an injury, CNU stayed with it, as Zyir Baskerville stuck with it to get a fourth-chance bucket for the Captains. Baskerville later hit a three to give CNU its 35-26 lead.
“We knew that we were kind of hurting ourselves. We were turning the ball over, unforced errors,” said Pearce. “So if there’s a way to feel good while being down, we kind of had that energy going into halftime. We knew that if we just turned it around a little bit, that we could take control of the game.”
Pearce finished with a game-high 21 points to lead Emory, while Ethan Fauss added 15, to go with game-highs with 14 rebounds and three blocked shots. Awasume blocked four shots and scored seven points while playing just 20 minutes because of foul trouble.
Toa Hollenbeck scored 16 points to lead CNU, shooting just 6-for-23 from the floor. The Captains went just 10-for-38 from the floor in the second half, or 26.3 percent.