Box Score The Dominican University men’s basketball team went toe-to-toe with the Northern Athletics Conference (NAC) South Division Champion Aurora University Spartans in the NAC Tournament semifinals on Tuesday night, taking the Spartans to the wire before falling 71-67 to close out the 2012-2013 campaign for the Stars.
 
Dominican held its biggest lead of the night, 20-11, after Michal Bobek (Orland Hills, Ill.) converted on a back-door layup with 8:28 to play in the first half to force the Spartans to call a timeout.  Aurora scored the next five points out of the timeout as Mark Adams knocked down a jumper from the foul line before Mike Bumber capitalized on a Dominican turnover, knocking down a three.
 
After Josh Ward (Burr Ridge, Ill.) hit the front-end of a two shot foul for the Stars, Aurora’s Esteban Vega pulled the Spartans within one, 21-20, with back-to-back buckets.  Kyle Pilmer eventually have the Spartans a 22-21 lead with a put-back off an Aurora missed three.
 
James Stawarz (Crystal Lake, Ill.) put Dominican back on top momentarily with a baseline jumper before Aurora rattled off seven straight points to open up a six-point lead, 29-23, with 2:35 to play in the opening half but Dominican answered as Anthony Keener (Carol Stream, Ill.), the Stars’ leading scorer on the season at 16.5 points per game, knocked down back-to-back treys to knot the score at 29-29 at the half.
 
Aurora opened up the second half with a 24-11 run over the first nine minutes of the half to open up their largest lead of the night 53-40 with 11 minutes to play but Dominican refused to go quietly.  Ryan Risley sparked a 10-4 run over the next five minutes, with a three from the corner to trim the Aurora lead to 57-50.
 
After Vega extended the Spartans’ lead to 61-52 with under five minutes to play, Dominican scored the next four points to pull within five heading into the final minute.  However, Vega would ice the game at the foul line, going 8-for-8 at the charity stripe in the final minute while Dominican knocked down three three’s to keep the pressure on the Spartans.  Eventually, it was a pair of Vega free throws with five-tenths of a second on the game clock that sealed the victory.
 
Vega led all scorers with 25 points on 7-for-15 shooting from the field, including 1-for-4 from three-point range, and going a perfect 10-for-10 at the foul line.  Scott Laskowski added 14 points and grabbed a game-high ten rebounds for his second double-double on the season.  As a team, the Spartans, who shoot a conference-best 47.6 percent from the field, managed to shoot just 38.5 percent from the field in the game, 25-for-65.  The Spartans were just 3-for-17 from behind the three-point arc but were nearly perfect from the foul line, 18-for-19, and committed just five turnovers.
 
Dominican was led by Keener’s tenth 20-point effort of the season.  The sophomore guard finished with an even 20 points on 7-for-17 shooting from the field, going 6-for-9 from three.  Keener also pulled down a team-high nine rebounds as Dominican out-rebounded the Spartans 42-39.  Logan Harris (Pleasant Plains, Ill.) added 16 points while Taylor DeRoo (Holland, Mich.) dropped in 12 in the losing effort.   The Stars shot just 36 percent from the field, 22-for-61, and connected on 11-for-32 attempts from three.
 
Dominican, who has been in four NAC Tournaments in the last seven seasons, finishes out the year with a 10-17 overall record, going 7-9 in the NAC regular season to finish second in the NAC South Division.  Dominican went 7-7 in its final 14 games after opening the season 3-10.