Va. Wesleyan squanders big lead, falls in second round

By Tyson McCloud

COLLEGEVILLE, Pa.

There will be no championship run for Virginia Wesleyan this season.

The Marlins' dream of making a third consecutive trip to the NCAA Division III tournament title game ended at the hands of a furious comeback by Ursinus on Saturday night.

Playing on its home court, Ursinus rallied from a 19-point

second-half deficit to defeat Virginia Wesleyan 70-64 in the second round of the NCAA t ournament.

The Bears (27-2) will move onto the Sweet 16 to face Gettysburg (24-4) on Friday.

The Marlins (23-7) will head home.

"It's very disappointing," said senior Tonton Balenga, who finished with only eight points in 28 foul-plagued minutes.

Senior D'Juan Tucker led the Marlins with 14 points, although he only scored two in the second half.

Leading 50-31 with 17:09 remaining, the Marlins slowly started to fall apart.

The Bears outscored Virginia Wesleyan 29 -9 in the next

11-plus minutes to take the lead. Junior John Noonan hit a layup to put the Bears up 60-59 with 5:31 left.

"They made some nice runs in the second half and we didn't answer them," Marlins coach Dave Macedo said.

"I'll take the blame for that."

The lead changed hands three times in the closing minutes before Ursinus secured the victory behind clutch free throws from Noonan and sophomore Matt Hilton, who led the Bears with 17 points.

Before the opening tip, the odds didn't exactly seem to be in Virginia Wesleyan's favor.

Ursinus entered the contest with a 20-game win streak and home-court advantage.

However, the Marlins led 44-27 at the end of the first half.

But what looked like an insurmountable lead eventually crumbled.

"It's just unfortunate that we came up a bit short tonight," Macedo said.

A s a result, the Marlins will head home.

For good.