AURORA, Ill. – After withstanding an Aurora attack that shot over 56 percent in the first half, the Edgewood College men's basketball team were in the midst of chipping away until a scoreless drought of nearly five minutes doomed the Eagles in the final minutes of a 76-63 loss to Aurora in the NACC semifinals.
The Eagles (11-16), who saw their four-game win streak snapped, were going for their first NACC championship bid since 2012 but couldn't keep up with the Spartans (18-8). With 6:57 remaining, Tyler Lemke nailed a midrange jumper that pulled the Eagles to within seven points of the NACC regular season champion, their closest margin since midway through the first half.
It would be the last Eagle score until a layup by Jake Negus with 2:11 left. By then it was too late as the Spartans used an 8-0 run over that span to open up a 73-60 lead. Senior Travis Kell, who mustered up 11 points and seven rebounds in his final game, dealt with foul trouble throughout and picked up his fifth with 1:38 to go. The newly minted 1000-point scorer left to a nice ovation by the Edgewood faithful behind the team bench.
Freshman Jake Negus led his team in scoring for the second-straight NACC tournament game and finished with 14 points. Twelve of his 14 points, including three 3-pointers, came in the first half as he and the Eagles tried to keep pace with the unstoppable Spartans.
Aurora shot 18-for-32 from the field (56 percent) and 8 of 12 (67 percent) from beyond the arc to open up a 49-36 lead at the break. The Spartans' Marcus Myers scored 16 of his 22 points in the first half and Ty Carlson, who finished with a game-high 23 points on 7 of 8 shooting, added 18 points.
A 20-14 run by the Eagles to open up the final half cut the lead to seven, but their drought commenced shortly after that. Both teams cooled off significantly in the second and shot a combined 3-for-21 from 3-point land.
Emil Radisevic added 10 point and four rebounds, Tyler Lemke chipped in eight points, and senior Arik Anderson also had eight points in his final game. With the game out of reach, Coach Meyer gave Anderson a well-deserved curtain call with a little over a minute to go. Sy Staver, whose clutch 3-point shot right before the buzzer lifted the Eagles to a first round win over MSOE, finished with three points and a game-high seven assists.
Despite an 11-16 record to end the season, the Eagles came together at the right time in qualifying for the NACC tournament for the first time since 2014-15. They beat Benedictine and MSOE, two of the top-3 teams in the conference, during their four-game run and battled No. 1 Aurora to the buzzer.
