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WOOSTER, Ohio (Mar. 7) - Despite a career-high 33 points from senior guard
Isaac Turner, the Saint Vincent men's basketball team was eliminated with a 76-67 loss to No. 8 Wooster in the first round of the NCAA Division III Tournament at Timken Gymnasium.
With the loss, the Bearcats end the season with a 22-7 record and a second-straight Presidents' Athletic Conference championship. Wooster, the champion of the North Coast Athletic Conference, improves to 26-3 on the season and advances to play Dickinson in the tournament's second round.
The Bearcats largely controlled the first 13 minutes of the contest, opening up a 19-9 lead at the 11:10-mark of the first half, the biggest lead SVC would hold all night. To get there, senior forward
Dillon Stith hit a layup at the 16:02-mark to start a 7-0 that included a three-pointer by sophomore guard
Ben Klimchock and a pair of free throws by classmate
JC Howard, 9-4.
With the Bearcats ahead, 11-9, Stith and Klimchock knocked down triples 61 seconds apart and Turner hit a layup as SVC used an 8-0 spurt to reach the 10-point lead, 19-9.
After four Wooster points, sophomore
Pat Jones hit a jumper that was answered by a Wooster three ball and four-straight points from Turner led to a 25-16 lead by the guests with 7:01 to go in the half.
The rest of the period, however, would be all Wooster as the Scots rattled off a 16-0 run, started by three-straight three-pointers by guard Xavier Brown in a 1:14 span to tie the game, 25-25, at the 5:33-mark. The run was part of a 23-4 span the hosts used to end the period, taking a 39-29 lead into halftime. The only points scored during the run by the Bearcats were a Jones free throw and a Turner three-pointer.
Beginning the second half, Wooster recorded a layup 36 seconds into play, but SVC responded with a 10-0 run as part of a 14-3 run to make it a one-point game, 44-43, with 14:30 left in the game. A Klimchock three at 19:08 started the run and following a Stith layup and pair of Turner free throws, Klimchock knocked down another triple, this one on a fast break. The Scots' points of the run came in the form of another Brown triple 26 seconds after Klimchock's second. Two free throws each by junior
Sean Kett and Turner put the game within a point, 44-43.
Turner hit a jumper at 13:47 to return the margin to one point, 46-45, and following a Wooster layup, he tied the game at 48-48 with a three-point play at the 12:49-mark. SVC was unable to re-gain the lead at any point the rest of the way despite 20 second-half points from the senior guard.
The 33 points, a game-high, from Turner ended his career with 1,469 points, one behind former Bearcat BJ McGill for seventh on the school's all-time scoring list. He made 10 field goals in the contest and went a perfect 11-for-11 at the free-throw line while also adding seven rebounds in playing all 40 minutes.
Klimchock was second on the team with 12 points on four three-pointers in just 17 minutes. PAC Player of the Year
Dillon Stith finished with 11 points, eight rebounds and four assists and closed his career with 1,310 points, 13th all-time. Kett led all players with 12 rebounds.
Five players scored in double figures for Wooster, which shot 41.4 percent (24-of-58) from the field, despite shooting just 10-of-31 (32.3 percent) in the second half.
NOTES: In two career NCAA Tournament games, Turner averaged 31.0ppg...Stith finished the year averaging 19.5ppg and 10.2rpg...The last Bearcat to average a double-double was four-time All-American and all-time leading scorer Tony Washam who averaged 28.3ppg and 10.4rpg in 2003-04.