The University of Mary Washington men’s basketball team built a 20-point first-half lead and then held on for an 81-73 victory over the University of Chicago Thursday night at Allen County War Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The victory sends the Eagles to the NCAA men’s basketball Division III semifinals for the first time in school history.
The Eagles (28-3), ranked fifth in Division III, will take on defending national champion Trinity (Connecticut) Saturday night at the same venue. Trinity defeated Tufts University in another quarterfinal Thursday. The game time for Saturday’s semifinal has yet to be announced.
The other half of the Final Four features UMW’s Coast 2 Coast Conference foe Christopher Newport against Emory University.
Eagles’ leading scorer Kye Robinson, who entered the game averaging 24.8 points per contest, was held to 12 against the Maroons, but junior forward Jay Randall stepped up in a big way.
Randall finished with a team-high 22 points on 10-of-15 shooting from the floor. UMW made all 15 of its free throw attempts, including a 4-of-4 effort in the final moments to seal the victory.
The Eagles went ahead of the Maroons 36-16 in the first half, and led 49-35 at intermission. But No. 6 Chicago (24-5) opened the second half on an 11-2 run to pull within 51-46 early in the second half.
The Eagles hit big shot after big shot to keep Chicago at bay. A 9-0 run gave UMW a 60-46 lead and the Maroons was able to get no closer than four points the rest of the way.
After Chicago pulled within 67-60, Randall’s layup pushed the lead back to nine. Robinson answered a three-point play by Chicago’s Nick Roper with a bucket of his own to push the Eagles’ lead to 71-63. The Eagles increased their lead to 10 at 75-65 on another Robinson score down the stretch.
UMW celebrated by parading around with the NCAA sectional trophy they earned with the victory.
In addition to Randall and Robinson, Ulysses Young and Jadon Burgess scored in double-figures for the Eagles with 13 and 11 points, respectively. Shane Regan paced the Maroons with 23 points, while Daniel Cochran added 17.
UMW shot 53% from the field, including an 8-of-18 effort from 3-point territory.
