SYRACUSE-The College of Saint Rose used a familiar recipe of balance and outstanding shooting to extend its season with tonight's 83-71 NCAA Championship Tournament first-round triumph versus Saint Anselm at Ted Grant Court on the Le Moyne College campus.
"I'm proud of the way we played. It was nice to see some different guys step up. We're excited to have advanced and we're looking forward to tomorrow," said assistant coach
Mike Perno.
The Golden Knights (21-9) will now face host and 24th ranked Le Moyne in a regional semifinal Sunday at 7:30 pm. The Dolphins advanced with this evening's 75-57 win against Jefferson.
Junior forward
Matt Cerutti scored a career-high 21 points, pulled down nine rebounds and handed out four assists to lead Saint Rose. Senior forward
Julian Lipinski finished with 19 points, while freshman guard
Adam Anderson and senior guard
Mical-Ryan Boyd tossed in 11 and 10 respectively.
Senior guard Taylor Fortin scored 18 points and freshman guard Chris Paul finished with 16 for the Hawks (22-9).
The Golden Knights led for the final 27 minutes after the initial 13 minutes featured five ties and 10 lead changes. Saint Rose, which shot better than 50.0 percent from the floor for the 11th time this season, put itself in control behind a 19-10 run throughout an eight-minute span early in the second half that turned a 49-46 cushion into a 68-56 advantage with 8:51 to play after sophomore guard
Michael Wearne knocked down a 3-pointer.
Saint Rose walked in the locker room up 44-42 at halftime following a first period that featured both teams putting on outstanding shooting displays. The Golden Knights buried 56.7 percent (17-for-30) of their chances with all eight players who saw action figuring in the scoring column. Meanwhile, the Hawks canned 60.9 percent (14-for-23) of their opportunities from the floor.
However, Saint Rose limited Saint Anselm to 1-for-11 shooting from the arc throughout the final 20 minutes, after the Hawks converted 62.5 percent (5-for-8) of their long range opportunities.
Notes: Saint Rose is advancing to its second consecutive NCAA Championship East Regional Semifinal. The Golden Knights fell twice to Le Moyne during the regular season with a 59-43 decision in Syracuse and 76-69 setback in Albany three weeks ago. Balance has been a team cornerstone all year. Five players are averaging between 14.3 and 9.2 points on the year. The Golden Knights have put five players in twin-figures scoring six times and have had four drop in at least 10 points eight other times, including this evening. Furthermore, six players pulled off the feat in an 88-75 victory against visiting Southern New Hampshire on January 17. Boyd and Lipinski are the top point producers. Boyd is averaging the 14.5 ppg while Lipinski, who has been in double-figures in each of the last eight games, is scoring at a 13.9 ppg clip and is pulling down 6.8 rebounds on a regular basis. He is third in the NE10 with 1.4 blocks per game and stands 11th in rebounding. Cerutti is ninth among the league leaders in rebounding (7.1) and FG% (.538). Lipinski, Boyd, and senior forward
Jack Jones all joined the 1,000 point club this season. Lipinski leads the way with 1,152 points, which is 25th all-time in program annals. He thus needs just 10 more points to catapult into 24th place ahead of Tony Franks (1978-81) who scored 1,161 points during what was then the Gold and Brown. Boyd and Jones have scored 1,123 and 1,019 points respectively.
As a team, Saint Rose is second in the NE10 in scoring defense (68.2) and blocks (3.6) and stands fifth in field goal percentage defense (.436). The Golden Knights have now won the turnover battle 19 times this season. They are 15-4 in those games and have a +1.5 turnover margin on the year.
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