Georgetown men come up short in NAIA semifinals; Thomas More women shooting for repeat
For a half on Friday night, the Georgetown College men’s basketball team looked well on its way to a spot in Saturday night’s NAIA national championship game at Kansas City, Mo.
Then, things took a turn.
In the end, the Tigers, playing in their record 42nd NAIA Tournament, came up short of an opportunity to compete for the school’s fourth national title.
No. 2 seed Indiana Tech rallied from 11 points behind at the break to overtake No. 3 seed Georgetown and win going away, 80-71.
Indiana Tech (32-4) was to play the No. 1-seeded College of Idaho (35-1) on Saturday night for the NAIA championship.
Georgetown, making its 16th appearance in the NAIA semifinals, bolted to a 22-9 lead and still was in front 40-29 after 20 minutes.
Indiana Tech began chipping away with 15:33 to go on a layup by Blake Davison that trimmed the Tigers’ lead to 46-39. Then came a 13-5 Tech run that put the Warriors in front 52-51 with 10:55 to play.
Georgetown (30-6) never led again.
Western Kentucky transfer Jake Ohmer (Scott High School) led the Tigers with 20 points. Kyran Jones (Bowling Green) finished with 12 points and 16 rebounds. Taz Dozier (Butler) added 11 points and Tommy Thomas 10.
Women
Thomas More 71, Central Methodist (Mo.) 61: Alex Smith provided her usual spark off the bench with 16 points, Emily Simon had 15, Zoie Barth (Highlands) 13 and Courtney Hurst (Conner) 11 as the always-balanced Saints advanced to the NAIA Tournament championship game for the third consecutive year at Sioux City, Iowa, on Friday.
No. 1-seeded Thomas More (31-3) was to take on No. 2 Clarke University of Iowa (32-4) for the national championship on Saturday night.
The Saints won back-to-back national championships in 2015 and 2016 in NCAA Division III, but the 2015 title was later vacated. Thomas More transitioned to the NAIA in 2019-20 but the postseason tournament was called off because of the pandemic.
The Saints reached the NAIA championship game before losing in 2020-21 then won the national title last year.
Thomas More steadily pulled away from Central Methodist (35-1) on Friday night, building leads of 15-13 after one quarter and 41-29 at halftime. But CMU battled back in the third period to tie things at 48 and later 58-58 with 3:30 to play in the fourth, but the Saints stretched things out from there.
Thomas More cashed in eight consecutive free throws during a 10-1 run that put things out of reach.
