The Benedictine (IL) men’s basketball team rolled into Saturday night’s Division-III national championship game boasting the only undefeated record in any NCAA basketball division.
Their opponents from St. Thomas made sure there wouldn’t be any perfect records by the end of the evening.
Riding the scoring of seniors Taylor Montero and Ryan Saarela, who combined for 53 points on 76% shooting accuracy from the field, the Tommies toppled Benedictine 82-76 on the Salem Civic Center court to take the D-III trophy to St. Paul, Minnesota for the second time in school history.
Appropriately, Montero, who outscored teammate Saarela 27-26 and took the edge in rebounds 11 to 10, was named the Final-4 most outstanding player.
The two teams had advanced after Friday night’s semifinal action on the Salem CC court where Benedictine edged Amherst 63-60 and St. Thomas ousted fan favorite Christopher Newport 66-62.
Saturday night, St.Thomas took a 37-32 lead to the halftime break and led by 12 points midway through the second half before Benedictine rallied to close to 73-71 with 1:35 left on leading scorer Luke Johnson’s breakaway slam. Johnson finished with 21 points and 11 rebounds for the Chicago-area Eagles.
But, Montero responded with a driving score to put the Tommies up 75-71 and Benedictine could never get over the hump as St. Thomas hit 8-of-9 from the charity stripe down the stretch to drop the civic center confetti in their favor as the final horn sounded.
Benedictine, which finished with a 31-1 record, was looking to become the first unbeaten college basketball national champion since 1998.
Bill Turner
