Feb. 17, 2008

Box Score

River Forest, Ill. - The Dominican University Stars took another step towards securing a spot in the 2008 Northern Athletics Conference (NAC) Men's Basketball Tournament as they knocked off Marian College 70-68 on Saturday evening.

Senior Rashim Lettsome (Waukegan, IL) scored the final five points for the Stars to wrap up the victory including a game-winning driving layup with one second remaining to seal the victory.

Dominican jumped out to an eight point lead at the end of the first half thanks to 15 first half points from Jose Garcia (Kenosha, WI). Garcia went 5-for-6 from the field, including a perfect 4-for-4 from three, in the first half coming off the Stars bench. The 6'1" senior guard set a Dominican University record in the process as he connected on ten consecutive three-point field goal attempts in a stretch spanning the Stars' last win over Benedictine University Tuesday night and the first 20 minutes on Saturday.

The Stars extended their lead to 13 at 57-44 over the opening seven minutes of the second half before Marian began to chip into the Stars' lead. Marian eventually knotted the score at 66-66 with under a minute to play before Lettsome took over for the Stars. After a Marian timeout with 48 seconds left in regulation, Lettsome and the Stars ran the clock down to 16 seconds before Lettsome drove the lane and connected on a driving layup while getting fouled. The 6'0" guard failed to convert on the free throw attempt and Marian snagged the rebound and tied the score at 68-68 with just seven seconds to play.

Mark White, the Stars' head coach, opted not to call a timeout to set up a final play and Lettsome took the inbounds pass and drove the length of the floor to sink the game-winner with just one second remaining on the clock.

The win pushed the Stars to 12-11 overall and into a tie for sixth place in the NAC with Edgewood College at 9-7. Dominican returns to the court on Wednesday as they host Rockford College for a 7:00 p.m. tipoff in Dominican's Igini Sports Forum. Dominican will then host MSOE for the final game of the regular season on Saturday.