FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Clark Teuscher, Sports Information Director, 630-637-5302
Box Score
WOOSTER, Ohio (Mar. 9, 2012) - Yielding an rare second-half rally, the North Central College men's basketball team saw its stay in the NCAA Division III Men's Basketball Championship come to a close on Friday, as the Cardinals lost a hard-fought 58-55 decision to the Wittenberg University Tigers at the College of Wooster's Timken Gymnasium.
The Cardinals led by as many as nine points in the second half before allowing Wittenberg to go on a 9-2 run in the final minutes and put to an end one of the finest seasons in the North Central program's history.
"I can't say enough about our basketball team," said the Cardinals' head coach, Todd Raridon. "I'm very, very proud of them. To have gone through and won the conference regular-season and tournament titles and advanced to the Sweet Sixteen, and how our leadership has been, they've really done something for North Central. They've raised the bar for our program, and that's what we needed."
North Central (22-8) trailed early, as the Tigers led by as many as seven points before an 11-0 Cardinal run, including seven points from Aaron Tiknis, moved North Central in front, 18-13. Wittenberg rallied and tied the contest at 22-22, and the lead was passed back and forth twice before two straight three-pointers by Kevin Gillespie gave the Cardinals some breathing room. North Central owned a four-point lead in the final seconds of the first half, but Wittenberg's Michael Cooper drove the lane for a bucket just before the buzzer to narrow the Cardinals' halftime lead to 32-30.
The Cardinals scored the first seven points of the second period, though Wittenberg (24-6) responded with seven points of their own to narrow the gap to two points once again. North Central put up six straight points over the next three minutes to take a 45-37 lead with 11:56 left.
North Central owned a 47-39 edge before Wittenberg began to mount a rally, scoring the next seven points to cut the deficit to a single point at 47-46. Landon Gamble fed Vince Kmiec for a layup to stop the bleeding, but the Tigers scored the next seven points to take their first lead of the second half at 53-49.
The Cardinals narrowed the gap to two points on two occasions in the final two minutes, trailing by a 57-55 count with 40 seconds to play after Tiknis sank two free throws. Facing a three-point deficit on the game's final possession, the Cardinals looked for an opening from three-point range, but Gillespie's long-range buzzer-beater was off the mark.
North Central tied the program's single-season record for victories and was making its first appearance in the round of 16 in the NCAA Tournament.
