DALLAS — In a back-and-forth physical affair at the Burg Center, the St. Mary's University Men's Basketball team ended up three points short in a 66-63 loss to No. 7 Colorado School of Mines in the NCAA Regional Semifinals on Sunday night.
The two teams saw seven ties and 18 lead changes throughout the game, and no team led by more than five at any point. The Rattlers end their outstanding season with a 20-11 record, while the Orediggers improve to 29-4 and will face top-ranked DBU in the Regional Finals on Tuesday evening.
The Rattlers had four players score in double digits, led by senior
Franklin Agu (London, England) with 15. Agu also collected a career-high five steals and added six rebounds. Junior guard
Damani Claxton (Bronx, N.Y.) scored 14 and led the game with four assists, while senior
Lachlan Bofinger (Sydney, Australia) scored 11 and grabbed a team-high eight rebounds and junior
Wayne Wiggins (Mansfield, Texas) added 10 points, three assists and three steals.
StMU had one of its best free throw shooting nights of the year, making 10-of-13, including all four that were assessed after flagrant fouls were called.
The Rattlers had a chance to tie the game late. With 2.7 seconds remaining, it looked like Claxton had made the tying triple, but a timeout had been called before the shot. Claxton got another look after a long review and a pair of timeouts, but the shot rimmed out for the Orediggers to advance.
Alex Romack led CSM with 17 points and 11 rebounds, while Adam Krasovec came off the bench to add 13 points.
For the second straight game, the Rattlers' defense shut down a league Player of the Year as Majok Deng, the RMAC and D2CCA South Central Regional Player of the Year was held to six points by the outstanding defense of senior
Sebastian Mendoza (Riverside, Calif.). On Saturday, StMU held Lone Star Player of the Year Ethan Duncan to a season-low tying two points.
The game was a rematch from the second contest of the season in Golden, where the Orediggers defeated the Rattlers by 20 points, 83-63, in the South Central Region Crossover to open the year. The pod featured four of the eight teams in the NCAA South Central Regional, along with Lubbock Christian and Regis.
Agu ends his two years with the Rattlers with 540 points and 351 rebounds, while Bofinger had 710 points, 525 rebounds and 144 assists in his two years and 908 points and 740 boards in his five-year career in San Antonio. Mendoza scored 193 points with 89 rebounds and 46 assists in one year at StMU, and concludes his career with 455 points, 215 boards and 95 assists. The other two seniors,
Diego Gonzalez (Arecibo, Puerto Rico) and
Ryan Salinas (San Antonio), did not play in the NCAA Tournament.
