Box
Score
St. Mary's City, Md. - No. 14 St. Mary's
College of Maryland will be making the program's second appearance
in the NCAA Division III Men's Basketball Championship next weekend
as the top-seeded Seahawks held in check a pesky Wesley College to
claim the 2010 Capital Athletic Conference championship title with
an 80-76 victory in front of a crowd of 448 Saturday
afternoon. This is the Seahawks' third conference crown in
program history as St. Mary's claimed the title back in 1991 and
2008.
Junior center Sam Burum (Bethesda, Md./Walt
Whitman) and sophomore guard James Davenport
(Owings Mills, Md./Loyola Blakefield) both played out of their
minds today for St. Mary's (24-3), putting up career numbers.
Burum registered his first career double-double on
career-highs of 26 points and 12 rebounds while
Davenport poured in a career-high 23 points on
8-of-12 shooting, including 4-of-6 from downtown.
Wesley (19-8), the No. 3 seed in this year's playoffs and the
defending champion, was trailing 49-35 with 15:17 remaining in
regulation but the Wolverines made it interesting, slowly and
steadily chipping away at St. Mary's 14-point lead and knotting the
game at 62-all (5:26) as junior guard Kevin
Johnson (Smyrna, Del./Smyrna) capped the 27-13 run with a
pair of free throws.
Johnson then gave his squad their first lead
since the 18:27-minute mark of the first half as his three-pointer
at 4:42 made it 65-64 Wesley. The Wolverines were unable to
sustain a sufficient run to pull away from St. Mary's as their last
lead of 73-72 at 1:02 dissolved with back-to-back lay-ups from
junior guard Alex Franz (Catonsville, Md./Cardinal
Gibbons) as 34 seconds remained in the contest.
Burum's lay-up with two seconds left sealed the
win for the Seahawks.
Four players reached double figures for Wesley with
Johnson leading the way with 19 points and nine
rebounds. Freshman Paul Reynolds (Smyrna,
Del./Smyrna) contributed 15 points while sophomore guard
Chris Douglas (Landover, Md./Jericho Prep Academy)
added 13 points and three assists. The final Wolverine in
double digits was senior forward Jacques Bowe
(Millsboro, Del./Sussex Tech) with 12 off the bench.
The Seahawks did not pull away from Wesley until late in the
first half as Davenport's layup at 4:51 sparked a
10-2 run which gave the home team enough cushion to post a 36-27
halftime advantage. Davenport had five
points in the go-ahead run.
The NCAA Division III Men's Basketball Committee will announce
this year's tournament pairings on Monday (March 1) morning at
10:00 am via Web cast on www.ncaa.com. That's when the
Seahawks will find out who they will face on March 5 in NCAA First
Round action.
St. Mary's first and last NCAA appearance was in 2008 when the
Seahawks advanced to the Sweet 16.
