Box Score
DENVER — What a difference a year makes.
St. Mary's Daryell Taylor could hardly lift his arm in last year's NCAA Division II regional tournament after dislocating his shoulder on a screen in the early goings against Midwestern State. Taylor didn't tell anyone about the injury, though, and he stayed in the game to finish with two points as the Rattlers exited the tournament in the opening round.
A year later, he has helped shoot his Rattlers to the Sweet 16.
Taylor (Sr., Houston) scored 21 points and Kevin Kotzur (Sr., La Vernia, Texas) added 21 and 15 rebounds as No. 2-seed St. Mary's powered past No. 3-seed Fort Lewis 62-50 to advance to the South Central Region championship game.
St. Mary's (23-7), ranked No. 23 in the nation, will take on host and No. 1-seed Metro State Tuesday at 8 p.m. (CDT) at the Auraria Event Center.
"It's an honor, man," said Taylor, who shot 8 of 17, of advancing. " To be with these guys, we've been practicing since August, grinding every day. It's a feeling I can't even really explain."
The Rattlers led most of the way, trailing once midway through the first half before closing out the frame on a 14-3 run to enter the break up 32-20. St. Mary's was never threatened in the second half, extending the lead to as high as 19 midway through the frame.
Brad Hubenak (Sr., Kennedale, Texas) added a season-high-tying 10 points off the bench, teaming with Justin Alexander (So., San Antonio) to go 8 of 9 from the floor.
Fresh off of scoring 20 in the regional quarterfinals, Moses Sundufu (Sr., Hopkins, Minn.) was held scoreless but impacted the game in other ways, adding eight rebounds and a team-high four assists.
Preaching defense and rebounding as the key, St. Mary's held Fort Lewis to 30.8-percent shooting from the floor, allowing just 3-of-19 from beyond the arc for their 11th win in 12 games. St. Mary's also outrebounded Fort Lewis 37-33.
With his 21 points, Kotzur moved 17 points shy of 2,000 for his career. He also passed Gary Tomaszewski for third place in the school's record book for career points with 1,983 points.
His 21-point performance came in stark contrast to his career-low five points in the opening round of the regional tournament, when Kotzur deferred to outside shooters based on the defensive looks he was seeing. And his big night came against fellow All-Region selection Alex Herrera in a prime-time showdown of big men.
"First off, that boy is a big boy," said Kotzur, whose double-double marked his 18th of the season. "Let's give him credit. He did a really good job of trying to post up. What we tried to do was move him off his spot, move him a little further away from the basket."
After starting off 0-for-6 in the NCAA regional round, the Rattlers suddenly find themselves winners of two straight on the sport's biggest stage.
"We don't want to get satisfied," Taylor said. "We have a big game coming up."
St. Mary's University, as a Catholic Marianist University, fosters the formation of people in faith and educates leaders for the common good through community service, integrated liberal arts and professional education, and academic excellence. The University has six athletic national titles: men's basketball (1989–NAIA), baseball (2001–NCAA Div. II), softball (1986–NAIA and 2002–NCAA Div. II) and an individual national champion in men's golf (2006–NCAA Div. II) and a national academic championship in men's golf (2009–NCAA Div. II). St. Mary's also had more than 40 percent of its athletes named to conference, regional and/or national honor rolls this past year. St. Mary's student–athletes graduation rate is 65 percent, higher than the NCAA Division II average of 55 percent. To learn more about St. Mary's, visit www.rattlerathletics.com.
