SALT LAKE CITY - The Westminster men's basketball
team defeated the defending NAIA national champions Rocky Mountain College
80-68 on Friday night to advance to the Frontier Conference Tournament
championship game. This is the 12th
consecutive victory for the fourth-ranked Griffins and their 22nd win in the
last 23 games.
"We knew they were going to play that defense
against us," said head coach Tommy Connor.
"I thought our attack was good, but it slowed the game down a bit."
Tonight's game was close through much of the first
half and featured 16 lead changes in the first 14 minutes of action. Then trailing 24-22 at the 6:37 mark of the
first half, Westminster finished the period on a 15-2 run and never looked
back. Westminster carried a 37-26 lead
into the intermission and pushed the advantage to 21 with 12 minutes to play in
the game behind a 15-3 run.
"We got some turnovers late in the first half that
led to some baskets," Connor said of the late first half run. "They are a good team and we needed that run
to get on a little roll."
The Griffins shot 60.8% from the field in the game
and scored 42 points in the paint. They
overcame 2-of-14 shooting from beyond the arc by collecting nine offensive
rebounds and posting 14 second chance points.
The Griffins also took care of the basketball with only six turnovers
while recording 25 assists and 31 made field goals.
"To get 25 assists on 31 field goals in pretty phenomenal,"
Connor said. "We have been doing that
all year so it's just another good performance by our guys."
Ben Walker scored a career high 28 points to lead
all scorers in the game. He shot 11-of-13
from the field while collecting six rebounds and making 6-of-7 free throw
attempts. Jeramie Hopson matched his
season high with 15 points while distributing a career best nine assists. Weston Anderson and Conner Nielsen finished
with 10 points apiece.
"In the second half we dumped the ball into Walker
and he just dominated," Connor commented about his junior forward.
The Westminster bench added nine points from Michael
Stockton and eight more from Tanner Gregory.
Stockton scored all nine of his points in the second half and added four
assists. Gregory got his eight points in
the first 20 minutes, three times hitting on 15-foot jumpers. The Griffins reserves outscored the Rocky
bench 17-10 in the game.
EJ Ross led Rocky with 23 points behind 7-of-11
shooting from beyond the arc. Anthony
Allen added 18 points and 10 rebounds.
Rocky shot 54.3% from the field as a team while making 10
three-pointers.
"Although they shot a good percentage, I though we
kept them out of rhythm and that was our goal defensively," Connor said.
Westminster will now host the championship game for
the second consecutive season. This year
they will face Montana Western after they escaped a 60-59 affair with Montana
State-Northern on Friday night. The top
two seeds from the regular season will tipoff at 7 p.m. on Monday, March 8 in
the Behnken Field House.
"We are excited to get to play on Monday and get our
students back," Connor stated of the championship game. "The game is going to be tough and we are
going to have to be ready. It will be a
good game."
