ELMHURST, Ill. -- The Lawrence University men's basketball team missed a layup in the final seconds that would have tied it, and Washington University of St. Louis held on for a 67-65 victory Friday night in the first round of the NCAA Division III Tournament.
Lawrence, ranked No. 20 by D3hoops.com, finishes the season with a 19-7 record. Wash U, the defending Division III champions, improves to 24-2 but was pushed to the brink by the underdog Vikings in the game at Elmhurst College.
"They were as good a team as I've every played or coached against, but I think we were better tonight," Lawrence coach Joel DePagter said. "The ony thing that's frusting is you never know when you're going to get a group like this again because they can beat anyone. We proved and validated every thing we've done at Lawrence. We more than belong in this tournament."
John Dekker led four Vikings in double figures with 17 points. Jayce Apelgren added 15 points and a game-high nine rebounds, Ryan Kroeger had 13 points and Chris Page finished with 11 points and five boards before fouling out.
Aaron Thompson paced the second-ranked Bears with 26 points.
The Vikings, playing in the NCAA Tournament for the fifth time in six seasons, are likely going to be thinking about what might have been against Wash U. Lawrence hit on 6 of 14 free-throw attempts and missed several shots down the stretch.
"Maybe it shouldn't have come down to the end like that if we make our free throws," DePagter said. "We've been shooting (free throws) well the last month of the season so it wasn't something I was concerned about."
Lawrence led 61-57 after Apelgren's layup with 3:12 remaining. The Bears then scored the game's next six points and led 63-61 with 1:47 left.
The score stayed that way until Kroeger buried a 3-pointer with 21 seconds left to lift Lawrence to a 64-63 lead. Thompson answered just seven seconds later with a 3-pointer to give the Bears a 66-64 lead.
"(Thompson) hit an unbelievable shot form the top of the key with hand in his face from three or four feet from behind the line," DePagter said..
Kroeger was then fouled and made one free throw with 12 ticks remaining to trim the margin to 66-65. The Vikings fouled Sean Wallis with 11 seconds left, and he also made only one free throw to stake Wash U to a 67-65 lead.
Lawrence called timeout to set up a play, and the Bears flocked to Lawrence's 3-point shooters. That left Dustin Lee open for a layup, but he couldn't get it to fall with four seconds left. Wash U's John Wolf collected the rebound to seal the win.
"They just let Dustin go in and didn't even cover him. I think he was probably a little shocked to be that open," DePagter said.
Wash U looked like it might run away with the game early in the second half. The Bears opened the final 20 minutes by scoring six consecutive points to grab a 42-33 lead.
Dekker answered for the Vikings with a 3-pointer and the Vikings began chipping away at the lead. Dekker hit another 3-pointer with 11:56 left to give Lawrence a 54-52 lead, the Vikings' first advantage since late in the first half..
The game then see-sawed until Lawrence grabbed its four-point lead with just over three minutes left.
Wash U ended the first half on an 8-0 run to take the lead at the break after Lawrence controlled nearly all of the opening 20 minutes.
With the game tied 6-6, Lawrence went on an 11-0 run to grab a 17-6 edge. Apelgen scored four points in that run, Dekker hit a 3-pointer, and Page capped the outburst with a layup with 12:57 left.
Thompson hit a 3-pointer for the Bears to finally end the scoring drought for the Bears.
After Lee's 3-pointer put Lawrence up 20-11, the Bears scored the next 10 points, capped by Thompson's 3-pointer to go up 21-20 with 8:18 left.
The Vikings later scored five consecutive points, capped by Page's layup, to lead 33-28 with 1:37 left in the opening half.
Dylan Richter answered for the Bears, hitting a 3-pointer to cut the lead to 33-31. Thompson then drilled a long 3-pointer to give the Bears a 34-33 lead with four seconds left. After a Lawrence turnover gave the Bears the ball back under their own basket, Thompson hit a jumper with one second left to give Wash U a 36-33 lead at the half.
Kroeger finished his career at Lawrence with 1,537 points, 28 points shy of tying Chris Braier's career scoring record. Senior guard Doug Kadison, who had a game-high six assists, finished his career second in all-time assists with 348, nine short of tying DePagter's record of 357.
Even with the loss, DePagter said it was an amazing game to be a part of.
"It was an awesome night to be a part of Lawrence basketball," DePagter said.