Anderson Advances To Men’s Basketball Regional Championship With 82-76 Victory Over Montevallo

AUGUSTA, Ga. - Brandon Young had team highs of 17 points and seven rebounds and Oskars Ernsteins scored 15 points, all on three-pointers, as seventh-seeded Anderson advanced to its first regional final in school history with an 82-76 win over sixth-seeded Montevallo in the semifinals of the NCAA Tournament Southeast Regional at Christenberry Fieldhouse.

Ernsteins connected on 5 of 7 three-pointers as the Trojans shot 52.4 percent (11-21) from long range for the game. Montevallo was even hotter behind the arc, hitting 54.5 percent (12-22), led by Ryan Westbrooks' 21 points on 7-11 three-point shooting. Kevis Cornwell added 12 points and Trey Britton 10 for Anderson (20-11), which advances to Tuesday's 7 p.m. regional championship game against the winner of the Augusta State-Queens semifinal. Antoine Davis scored 19 points, Jonas Brown added 17 and DeMarcus Catchings had 16 points and nine rebounds for Montevallo (19-11).

Montevallo led 67-64 with just over four minutes to play before Anderson went on a 12-2 run to seize control. Denzail Jones converted a three-point play to tie the score and Ernsteins gave Anderson the lead for good with his fifth three-pointer, matching a season high. Jones added a layup and Cornwell scored four points on a layup and two free throws to give the Trojans their biggest lead of the game, 76-69 with 1:29 on the clock.

Montevallo pulled within 78-76 with 21 seconds remaining on a three-pointer by Brown, but Anderson sealed the win on two free throws by Nick Trull and two by Britton. In between, Taylor Shugart blocked a Montevallo shot and Britton grabbed the rebound for the Trojans.

Montevallo opened the second half on a 10-0 run to stretch a one-point halftime lead to 50-39. Catchings added the exclamation point with an alley-oop dunk off an assist from Tyrell Coleman. Catchings was fouled on the play and hit the free throw to complete the old-fashioned three-point play and put the Falcons up by 11.

Anderson answered with a 19-6 spurt to take its first lead of the second half. Young scored eight of the points, Shugart added five, McDowell scored three and Trull capped the run with a three-pointer to give the Trojans a 58-56 advantage with 8:50 to play.

The teams traded baskets in the first half, with neither team leading by more than four points through the first 12 minutes. The game then turned into a three-point duel, with the teams combining for six straight baskets from long range. Trull and Britton each drained a trey for Anderson while Westbrooks scored 12 straight points for Montevallo on four three-pointers, the last giving the Falcons their biggest lead of the first half at 26-20.

In all, the teams hit 15 three-pointers in the first half. Montevallo shot a blistering 70 percent (7-10), led by Westbrooks' 5-6 shooting. Ernsteins nearly matched Westbrooks, connecting on 4-5 treys as the Trojans shot 57.1 percent (8-14) from downtown. A rare two-point basket, a layup by Davis six seconds before halftime, gave Montevallo a 40-39 lead at the break.

Both teams shot better on three-pointers than on two-point attempts. Anderson shot 41.1 percent (14-34) from inside the arc while Montevallo made only 15 of 37 shots (40.5 percent) from two-point range, including just 37.1 percent (13-35) overall shooting in the second half. Anderson outscored Montevallo 21-10 from the free throw line, shooting 75 percent (21-28) to 62.5 percent (10-16) for the Falcons. Cornwell led the way, connecting on 7 of his 8 attempts from the charity stripe.

Quotes:
Anderson Head Coach Jason Taylor
"I am ecstatic that we have made it to the Sweet Sixteen."

"Montevallo is a well-coached and well-detailed team. They completely battled. They are one tough team."

"We want to play inside-out. Oskars (Ernsteins) is one of those kids that can really get going. We really want to play out to our shooters. Our attack was inside-out."

"We are going to enjoy it and be sure to be efficient in our preparation; we just have to continue that. We have to play better in the next game than we did tonight."

"Oskars has the green light to shoot at anytime."

Anderson Senior Forward/Center Trey Britton
"We just want to take it a game at a time and keep doing new things for our school."

"The game began to change when we began executing better offensively. We gained momentum."

Anderson Senior Guard Oskars Ernsteins
"It feels amazing, especially with this being our senior year. We have a really good team this year and we played against a really good team. It was an amazing game and an amazing opportunity."

Montevallo Head Coach Danny Young
"We came out and played as hard as we could play. They played really hard. We had several opportunities and I believe the key was the backdoor layups."

"The guys worked really hard and didn't have any time to practice. We tried to slow things down and grind it out."

"We lost four team members in a short time span of about three weeks. For all the things we went through, we had a pretty good year. The guys have nothing to hang their heads about. They actually played really well. We were hoping we had enough gas in the tank to finish. They were really tired and that took its toll. Our shooting 63 percent from the foul line has been our Achilles heel."

"Anderson played really well."