WHITEWATER, Wis. – Augustana rode a near school-record shooting performance and dominance on the boards to an 88-77 win over 18th-ranked St. Thomas in the opening round of the NCAA Division III tournament Friday. The Vikings hit 35 of 51 field goal attempts for a .686 percentage and outrebounded the Tommies 33-20 in leading nearly wire-to-wire. Now 20-7 on the year, Coach Grey Giovanine's club will take on the winner of Friday's second game – third-ranked UW-Whitewater – at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday.
The teams traded baskets early on, with five lead changes and two ties in the first four and a half minutes. A flurry of Augustana offensive rebounds ended with a Brandon Motzel (Carmel HS, Buffalo Grove, Ill.) put-back with 15:42 on the first-half clock, giving the Vikings an 8-7 lead which they would not relinquish.
Augustana gradually built on that lead, with a Ben Ryan (Washington HS, Washington, Ill.) layup with 6:25 to play before halftime putting the team up by 10 for the first time at 29-19. A Jawan Straughter (Plainfield East HS, Bolingbrook, Ill.) jumper at the 2:19 mark gave the Vikings their biggest first-half lead at 37-25 and another by Ryan less than a minute later equaled it at 39-27.
St. Thomas finished the first half strongly however. First, Taylor Montero cut the deficit to nine with a three-pointer. Then, after a Viking turnover, Cortez Tillman drove the lane and scored, drawing the third foul on Hunter Hill (Byron HS, Byron, Ill.) in the process. Tillman converted the conventional three-point play and the teams went to the locker room with Augustana up 39-33. The Vikings used .629 shooting from the field and a 20-10 advantage on the glass to counter foul trouble and 10 turnovers in the opening 20 minutes.
Each team put together a big scoring run early in the second half. A three-pointer from Hill with 18:33 remaining pushed the lead back into double digits at 44-33. Inside 15 minutes, Augustana got back-to-back three-pointers from Mark Roth (Washington HS, Metamora, Ill.) and Danielius Jurgutis (Downers Grove South HS, Darien, Ill.) to claim its biggest lead of the night at 56-39 with 13:27 left.
However, over the next three and a half minutes, the Tommies went on a 17-4 run which featured a trio of three-pointers and St. Thomas trailed just 60-56 with nine minutes to go. Ryan and Hill answered with baskets though, to put the Vikings back up by eight.
A Jurgutis layup with 5:04 to play built the lead back to 75-62 before St. Thomas made one final push. A pair of Zach Riedeman free throws at 1:32 got the Tommies to within six one more time, but Augustana converted six of eight free throws in the last 1:19 and Tayvian Johnson (United Township HS, East Moline, Ill.) put the exclamation point on the win with a fast break dunk following a Jurgutis steal. The Viking win avenged a loss to St. Thomas in the quarterfinals of the 2011 NCAA tournament – the only other meeting between the schools.
Augustana's shooting performance from the floor was just shy of the school record of .700 (42 of 60) set in a 100-64 win at North Central on February 2, 1980. Ryan led five Vikings in double figures with a game-high 17 points. He also led all rebounders with eight. Hill scored 16 without missing a shot from the field. Straughter and Jurgutis each hit 5-of-7 field goal attempts and finished with 13 points. Johnson scored 10 and had three steals. Kevin Schlitter (Maine South HS, Park Ridge, Ill.) came off the bench for five points and seven rebounds in 29 minutes. Erik Tengwall led six Tommies in double figures with 11.