By Murray Gleffe
Correspondent
DE PERE—The St. Norbert College men’s basketball team couldn’t hold on to a lead with under four minutes to go and lost to the Lake Forest Foresters by a final of 68-64, Feb. 23, in the Midwest Conference Tournament championship game.
Wade Geenen led the Green Knights with 18 points, while Jared Murphy added 12 points and four rebounds.
The Foresters got 19 points apiece from Sean Espinosa and Danny Sotos.
The Foresters built early leads of 7-3, and 17-10 behind the hot outside shooting of Espinosa.
With 13:35 left till halftime the Green Knights came out of a timeout and went on an 11-1 run to grab the lead at 21-18 sparked by an energetic crowd at the Mulva Sports Center.
The rest of the half featured five lead changes with neither team seizing more than a one possession margin.
When the horn sounded for intermission both teams were deadlocked at 34 all showcasing just how even both teams were in this winner-take-all game.
St. Norbert scored the first six points of the second half, but the Foresters responded with a huge 13-2 run of their own to take a 47-42 advantage with 12:46 left in the game. The culprit was the offensive rebounding of Jordan Moran and Chad Bauchan which gave Lake Forest extra possessions in the half-court.
“When we went up six, we couldn’t extend the lead because of a couple of defensive breakdowns that frustrated me,” said St. Norbert head coach Gary Grzesk. “A couple of them were off inbound plays and others were not getting around screens.”
The Green Knights weren’t about to go away, however, on their home floor as they pressed ahead once again at 60-58 after Joe Ciriacks poked the ball away and fed Geenen for the easy two in transition.
A little later on and the score deadlocked at 64 all, Moran got an entry feed from Aram Arsianian and powered up a layup with 2:18 left in the game.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have any seniors on our roster, and they have two that I thought made plays when they needed to in the second half,” added Grzesk. “We had a couple of good looks down the stretch and couldn’t get the shots to fall.”
Both teams missed chances on their next couple of possessions.
With 37 seconds remaining, Drew Yetka missed a triple that would have given the Green Knights the lead.
The St. Norbert coaching staff elected not to foul on the Foresters next possession but a weird carom off the front of the rim landed right in Espinosa’s hands at the elbow and he converted both free throws to propel Lake Forest to their first ever NCAA Division III tournament appearance.
“If everybody returns next year, we’ll be a year older and hopefully if put in this position again will be able to capitalize in key moments,” said Grzesk.
The Green Knights end their season at 19-8.
Box Score:
Lake Forest: 34, 34—68
St. Norbert: 34, 30—64
Foresters: Sotos 19, Espinosa 19, Arslanian 14, Moran 14, Brown 2
Green Knights: Geenen 18, Murphy 12, Ciriacks 11, Beirne 8, Lemon 6, Yetka 4, Krekling 3, Lynch 2
