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Catholic 81, Mary Washington 72 Date published: 2/29/2004
Which is more preferable: a slow demise or a quick one? The Mary Washington College men's basketball team suffered through both types in yesterday's 81-72 loss to Catholic University in the championship game of the Capital Athletic Conference tournament. The Cardinals converted two-thirds of their field goal attempts in the first half (18-of-27) to forge a 43-36 lead, then iced the game with an agonizingly effective 27-of-32 effort from the free throw line in the second half. In capturing the CAC tournament crown, the Cardinals avenged last year's 70-68 finals loss to MWC and, more importantly, assured themselves a berth in the NCAA Division III berth. MWC (20-8), meanwhile, appears to have only an outside chance of receiving one of seven at-large bids. "It was a tough game and I knew it would go down to the wire. I thought it would get closer at the end," Catholic coach Mike Lonergan said. "Year-in, year-out, we outscore our opponents from the foul line. We try to make their big guys shoot over us and not foul them." MWC had little success working the ball inside against Catholic's towering front line. Six-foot-nine center Matt Spierenburg had three of the Cardinals' six blocks in the first half. "We were trying to get points in the post, and it seemed like we weren't getting any breaks," said veteran Eagles guard Evan Fowler, who finished with 20 points and 11 assists. "And unfortunately, we made some bad defensive moves and fouled them on threes. "We expected a hard-fought game," Fowler added. "We were always clawing back. We were always playing behind. I didn't think we would be down by eight with 1 minutes to go. I thought it would be closer game coming to the last shot." Besides going against heavy traffic, MWC forward Ian Sumers was twice called for charging fouls in the first half. He then picked up a third charging call with 5:59 remaining that nullified the sophomore's layup, which would have cut the deficit to five. "They get out on the shooters pretty well," Fowler said of Catholic's perimeter defense. "Usually we have a lot of penetration and that will get us some open shots. We made some but not enough. Partly we were relying on the threes too much because we weren't scoring or looking enough inside.
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