Men's Basketball 11/16/07 -- Pacific Lutheran (Wash.) 84, Augsburg 73
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PORTLAND, Ore. (11/16/07) -- Josh Dressler and Scott McDaniels scored 30 points apiece, leading the Pacific Lutheran University (Wash.) men's basketball team to an 84-73 victory over Augsburg College in a semifinal game of the Pacific Northwest Lutheran Tournament on Friday afternoon at Concordia University (Ore.).
Nate Alm (JR, Eden Prairie, Minn.), a transfer student making his Augsburg debut, claimed a double-double with 16 points and 13 rebounds. Jon Cassens (SO, Prior Lake, Minn.) scored 15 points with five assists for the Auggies.
It was the season-opening game for both teams. Augsburg will play in the third-place game against Concordia University-Nebraska (3-3) on Saturday (11/16) at 4 p.m. (Pacific time), while Pacific Lutheran will play in the title game against Concordia University-Oregon (2-0 overall) on Saturday at 8 p.m. Host Concordia-Oregon topped Concordia-Nebraska 61-44 in Saturday's other semifinal.
"I'd like to tip my hat to PLU on a nice effort tonight. They were the better team and they held off a couple of nice runs from our team," said Augsburg head coach Aaron Griess. "We're a better basketball team than we showed tonight and we'll learn from our mistakes. We'll lick our wounds and come back ready to play a better game tomorrow night."
Augsburg shot just 39 percent (23-of-58) from the field, including just 5.3 percent (1-of-19) from three-point range. Also, the Auggies struggled with foul trouble, as two players fouled out and two more were hampered with four fouls.
"The strength of our basketball team is our ability to shoot the ball. We got a lot of open looks tonight and we shot 1-of-19 from three-point range. That's not going to win us a lot of ballgames. Combine that with our 18 turnovers and you really put yourself in a hole. With that said, we were only down two points with five minutes to play. We just couldn't make enough plays to get ourselves out of the hole," Griess said. "When Femi Solaja (SR, Cottage Grove, Minn./St. Paul Harding HS) picked up his second foul less than 40 seconds into the game, our game plan had to be altered. We simply did not play a smart game tonight defensively and we allowed too many second looks at the basket."
Pacific Lutheran claimed 19 offensive rebounds, en route to a 49-42 rebound advantage, and converted 17 second-chance points. The Lutes also scored 21 points off of the 18 Auggie turnovers, while Augsburg scored 15 points off of 14 PLU turnovers.
Pacific Lutheran pulled away in the closing minutes of the first half to take an 11-point lead, 37-26 with 2:50 left, completing a 9-2 run. The Lutes led 44-36 at halftime, but Augsburg cut the lead to one point, 47-46, with a 10-3 run over the first 4:45 of the second half. The teams traded runs in the second half, and Augsburg cut the lead to just two points, 67-65 with 5:10 left to play. But the Lutes outscored the Auggies 17-8 down the stretch to claim the win.
Justin Kozlowski * (SR, Wausau, Wis./Wausau Newman HS) scored nine points with five rebounds for Augsburg, while Solaja had nine points and six rebounds. Aaron Van Der Stoep (FY, Ellsworth, Minn.) scored eight points in his Auggie debut, and Darren Nelson * (JR, Richfield, Minn.) had seven points. Mitch Dice (SR, Savage, Minn./Bloomington Lutheran HS) had seven rebounds.
"There were some positives," Griess said. "Besides for getting in foul trouble, Nate Alm played a nice game for us tonight. We need him to give us that kind of effort night-in and night-out. We shot nearly 77 percent from the free-throw line tonight. If we can fix a couple other areas and keep our free throw numbers high, we'll be ok. Also, Aaron Van Der Stoep had a nice debut tonight. He got thrown into the fire and handled it very well. I was proud of his poise tonight."
McDaniels had nine rebounds for the Lutes to go with his 30 points, while Dressler added six points, four steals and three assists to his 30-point effort. Landon Heidenreich scored 11 points -- all at the free-throw line (11-for-14) -- with eight assists and six rebounds.
