Freed-Hardeman ended SOU’s playoff upset string 69-56 Saturday in Kansas City
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The ride is over. In the NAIA Men’s Basketball Championship quarterfinal round, Southern Oregon finally ran out of gas.
Defending national champ Freed-Hardeman (Tenn.), the Duer Quadrant’s top seed, stopped the No. 11-seeded Raiders 69-56 on Saturday evening at Municipal Auditorium. A physical Lions defense that stuck SOU with a season-low 33% clip from the field made a fourth consecutive tournament upset untenable.
FHU forward Peyton Law dominated the paint with 25 points on 12-of-15 shooting, 11 rebounds, three steals and two blocked shots. He scored 18 in the second half after the Lions went into the break up four.
Fifth-year senior guard Mason Whittaker, in his 123rd and final appearance, led SOU with 10 points and two steals.
The Raiders controlled the pace early and were up 22-19 with five minutes left in the first half before enduring a nearly nine-minute drought without a field goal. They trailed by 9 when it ended. A Joe Juhala 3-pointer got them within 38-31 with 13 minutes left, but the Lions then took over for good with 14 unanswered points.
The Raiders — one of the last teams to receive an at-large bid for the tournament — were 24 hours removed from knocking off No. 7 seed Keiser (Fla.), the Sun Conference champion. Prior to that win, they’d eliminated No. 6 seed Montana Tech, the Frontier Conference champion, and No. 3 seed The Master’s (Calif.), the Golden State Athletic Conference champion.
They were in the quarterfinals for the third time in program history and had never before won three consecutive national tournament games. They’d also never won outside of the NAIA Division II level, which went away when the two divisions merged three years ago.
Juhala finished with 9 points, 4 rebounds and 3 assists off the bench. Elijah Jackson and Gabe Reichle scored eight apiece, and Bryce Dyer recorded a team-high nine rebounds.
The Lions became the third No. 1 seed to advance to the Fab Four. The fourth was still playing its quarterfinal game at the time of publication.
This story first appeared on the Southern Oregon University Sports Information website, souraiders.com.
