AVE MARIA, Fla. — The Ave Maria Men's Basketball team needed a win Saturday afternoon to secure the second seed in the Sun Conference tournament and that is just what they got on Senior Day against the Southeastern Fire. The Gyrenes never trailed in the regular season finale and fended off a flurry of comeback attempts from the Fire.
The first half started off perfect for the Gyrenes, getting out to a 19-8 lead in the opening seven and a half minutes of the game. Ave Maria hit five three pointers in that stretch while the Fire went 0-for-6 from beyond the arc. Southeastern tied the game 8-8 about four and a half minutes into the game, but then the Gyrenes went on an 11-0 run to get out to that 19-8 lead.
Ave Maria played with the double-digit lead for most of the first half, getting their biggest lead of the night off a Miles Monchecourt layup to make the lead 17 points.
Southeastern closed the half strong with a 17-8 run in the final five minutes to get back within single digits of the Gyrenes. Seven of those points came in the last 90 seconds to make the halftime score 49-41.
The second half was a lot tighter than the first half. Ave Maria led for the whole 20 minutes, but the lead was mainly a single digit lead as opposed to the double digit lead they had in the first half.
The closest Southeastern ever got was within five points of the Gyrenes. The Fire got the game down to a two-possession game a couple of times in the second half, but every time the Gyrenes responded with strong defense and time bucket to get back up to three possessions. The first big bucket was a three-pointer from Jack Watkins with eight minutes left to play in the game, and the second was layup and a foul from Jaylen White.
With a minute left and down nine, the Fire tried one more push to get back into the game. Southeastern's Joshua Blazquez drove in for a layup, but it was blocked by Watkins, swatting the ball out of the air. The block brought the Tom Golisano Field House to their feet and ended SEU's momentum. The Fire scored just one more point after the block while the Gyrenes added three more on a free throw and layup to win 90-79.
"[I'm] really proud of our guys. You know, Southeastern's well coached, they got great players. Some guys that gave us fits, we had a really hard time guarding them. We get up 17 and then they cut it to eight at the half due to us kind of [having] some ill-advised possessions. But other than that, I thought the second half we really settled down and settled in and had some really high quality possessions to keep them at bay enough to get a win," said head coach Jamon Copeland after the game.
Ave Maria had five players in double figures in the regular season finale. Watkins led the team with 18 points, hitting three shots from behind the arc. Nick Filchner was next with 16 points, followed by White and Monchecourt at 15 and Michael Klekas at 11. Klekas also had 11 rebounds, recording his third double-double of the year.
With the win, Ave Maria finishes the regular season with a record of 22-6 overall and 13-3 in conference play. The win locked up the second seed in the conference tournament for the Gyrenes, finishing a game better than the Florida Memorial Lions. As the second seed, Ave Maria gets a bye in the Sun Conference Quarterfinals Tuesday and will move straight to the Semifinals on Friday, February 28. The second seed is the highest the Gyrenes have ever been in program history.
The Sun Conference Semifinals are set for Friday night, February 28, in West Palm Beach, Florida. The Gyrenes will take on the winner of Florida Memorial and St. Thomas. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. and the game will be streamed live on the Sun Digital Network by the host Keiser Seahawks.
