#1 Simpson Survives, Advances to Men's Final
Survive and advance is the cliché in March basketball, and #1 Simpson did exactly that to stave off #5 Stanton in the Cal Pac men's semifinals, 73-69. The Red Hawks (15-11) advance to Monday night's championship game against the winner of #2 Northern New Mexico and #3 Cal Maritime.
Stanton (7-17) used excellent defense to stymie the Red Hawks, and built an 11-point lead at 48-37 with 15:50 to go in the game. But Simpson put together a 14-2 run, holding the Elks without a field goal for five minutes to go up 51-48 with 11 minutes left.
The teams went back and forth until Simpson took the lead for good at 68-67 on a pair of free throws by Nian Allen (game high 22 points) with 2:46 to play. Defensive player of the year Aidan Rolfs, who had three quick first half fouls and got just 4 minutes of court time in the opening stanza, gathered in an offensive board for a putback at the 2 minute mark, his first points of the game. Fittingly his free throws with 19 seconds left gave Simpson their largest lead (72-69)…until Rolfs hit one-of-two with under a second left for the final margin. Simpson struggled from the foul line (going 14-31) but made them under pressure at the end.
League player of the year Timothy Parker had 17 for the Red Hawks. Alex Stein led four Elks in double figures with 15, but his three in the closing seconds bounced dangerously off the rim.
Simpson won the Cal Pac regular season title for the first time in school history, and advances to the league championship game for the first time as well.