College Men’s Basketball Final – Washington and Lee 82, Guilford 76 (2OT)‏

SALEM, Va. – Eighth-seeded Washington and Lee University started the 2009 Old Dominion Athletic Conference Men’s Basketball Tournament with a bang Friday afternoon, posting an 82-76 double-overtime upset of top-seeded Guilford College. The hard-fought game featured 11 ties and 17 lead changes.

The victory marked just the second by the number-eight seed in the tournament quarterfinals. Lynchburg College upended top-seeded Randolph-Macon College, 52-50, in the 2004 tourney.

Washington and Lee (15-12) ended a six-game losing streak to Guilford and advances to the ODAC Tournament semifinals to play the winner of the Bridgewater College/Eastern Mennonite University quarterfinal.

Guilford (21-5), the defending ODAC Tournament champion, is ranked 19th in this week’s D3hoops.com Top 25 Poll and third in this week’s NCAA Division III South Region Rankings. The Quakers will hope for an at-large to the 60-team NCAA Division III playoff field, which will be announced Monday (3/2) morning on www.ncaa.com.

The Generals held Guilford to 26.3 percent field-goal shooting in overtime and limited the Quakers to one-for-eight field-goals shooting in the decisive second overtime. Guilford’s Rhett Bonner scored the opening points of the frame for a short-lived 72-70 Quakers’ lead. Washington and Lee’s Chris McHugh answered with a three-pointer with 3:57 left that gave the Generals the lead for good at 73-72.

Bonner, who kept Guilford in the game with 21 of his career- and game-high 28 points after halftime, fouled out with 3:26 left in the second overtime. As the Quakers struggled to score, Washington and Lee went ahead 77-74 on Ben Heller’s basket with 2:18 remaining. The teams traded scoreless possessions before the Generals sealed the upset with five-of-six free-throw shooting in the final 26 seconds.

Isaiah Goodman led Washington and Lee with 24 points, thanks to four-of-seven three-point shooting. He had 13 points in the first half, which helped the Generals to a 30-28 halftime advantage. Goodman’s five steals paced a Washington and Lee defensive effort that forced 23 Guilford turnovers leading to 27 Generals’ points. Washington and Lee held Guilford to five-of-17 (.294) shooting from three-point land, well below the Quakers’ league-leading .379 three-point field-goal percentage.

The Generals connected on 37.9 percent (11-29) of their three pointers. Chris McHugh hit three of his five trifectas in the second half and finished with 18 points. Heller added 14 points and a team-high seven rebounds. Zac White only scored eight points, but six came in the second overtime and another came from a game-tying free throw with six seconds left in regulation.

Guilford’s Tyler Sanborn scored 11 points and grabbed a career- and game-high 21 rebounds, matching the ODAC Tournament record. George Neville added 12 boards and 16 points, including a game-tying layup with four seconds remaining in the first overtime. Clay Henson scored 10 of his 14 points in the first half.

Newspaper Box Score
Washington and Lee vs Guilford
02/27/09 1:00 p.m. at Salem, VA – Salem Civic Center
At Salem, VA – Salem Civic Center
WASHINGTON AND LEE 82, GUILFORD 76
WASHINGTON AND LEE (15-12)
GOODMAN, Isaiah 7-14 6-10 24; McHUGH, Chris 6-14 1-2 18; HELLER, Ben 5-11
4-6 14; WHITE, Zac 1-8 6-8 8; GOETSCH, Ben 2-6 2-5 7; PAYNE, Andrew 3-4 0-0
6; CIMINO, Jason 1-1 0-2 3; KEIRLE, Will 1-5 0-0 2; SAUERS, Craig 0-0 0-0 0;
OWENS, Ryan 0-2 0-0 0; JONES, Kirk 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 26-65 19-33 82.
GUILFORD (21-5)
BONNER, Rhett 8-16 10-11 28; NEVILLE, George 6-11 4-6 16; HENSON, Clay 5-13
1-3 14; SANBORN, Tyler 4-11 3-3 11; MONROE, Brad 1-4 0-0 2; STEPHENSON,
Martin 1-1 0-0 2; ANDERSON, T.C. 1-5 0-0 2; LOWDER, Gabriel 0-3 1-2 1;
STANLEY, Mat 0-0 0-0 0; HIGH, Eric 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 26-65 19-25 76.
Washington and Lee………… 30 32 8 12 – 82
Guilford…………………. 28 34 8 6 – 76
3-point goals–Washington and Lee 11-29 (McHUGH, Chris 5-11; GOODMAN, Isaiah
4-7; CIMINO, Jason 1-1; GOETSCH, Ben 1-3; KEIRLE, Will 0-2; PAYNE, Andrew
0-1; WHITE, Zac 0-4), Guilford 5-17 (HENSON, Clay 3-9; BONNER, Rhett 2-7;
LOWDER, Gabriel 0-1). Fouled out–Washington and Lee-CIMINO, Jason,
Guilford-BONNER, Rhett; STEPHENSON, Martin. Rebounds–Washington and Lee 38
(HELLER, Ben 7; GOETSCH, Ben 7), Guilford 52 (SANBORN, Tyler 21).
Assists–Washington and Lee 12 (McHUGH, Chris 4; CIMINO, Jason 4), Guilford
9 (BONNER, Rhett 3). Total fouls–Washington and Lee 25, Guilford 29.
Technical fouls–Washington and Lee-None, Guilford-None. A-500
2009 ODAC Men’s Basketball Tournament
Quarterfinal #1: #1 Guilford vs. #8 Washington and Lee

Dave Walters
Guilford College Athletics