Trinity Opens SCAC Tournament With Win Over Oglethorpe

Jackson, Mississippi - The Trinity University Tigers men's basketball team opened the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference Tournament with a 61-52 victory Friday over the Oglethorpe Stormy Petrels at The Hangar Dome at Millsaps College.

Trinity (14-12), seeded No. 2 in the SCAC West Division, takes on defending champion Centre, No. 1 in the East, at 1 p.m. Saturday in the semifinals. The winner will advance to Sunday's championship game, with a noon tip off. Centre was a 64-49 winner over host Millsaps on Friday at the eight-team tournament. Oglethorpe, No. 3 in the East, completed the season with a 15-11 record.

Tiger junior forward Luke Caldarera of Houston (Katy Taylor), scored a team season-high 26 points, shooting 8-17 from the field, 4-6 from 3-point range, and sinking 6-6 free throws. Caldarera previously cracked the top 25 in Tiger career points, and needs 11 more to become the 23rd player to score 1,000 points. He also led the Tigers with nine rebounds.

His 26 points is a new Trinity record in the SCAC Tournament.  The previous record was a 22-point performance by Chad Stroberg - also against Oglethorpe.  Stroberg's 22 points came in the 2004 championship.

Senior guard Michael Tobolowsky of Dallas (Greenhill School) added 14 points and seven rebounds. Sophomore guard Ryan Beall of Santa Barbara, Calif. (Dos Pueblos), scored eight points, and accounted for eight rebounds and five assists.

Oglethorpe, which beat Trinity 66-62 on Jan. 15 in San Antonio, was paced by Wade Weldon, with nine points and nine rebounds.

The Stormy Petrels held a 22-19 edge at halftime. Neither team had stellar shooting in the first half, as Oglethorpe shot 29 percent, and Trinity hit 24 percent. A jumper by Caldarera at 17:04 in the second half gave the Tigers a 23-22 lead. The tightly played game would be tied for the fourth and final time, 35-35, with 13:08 on the clock. The game see-sawed until Oglethorpe took a seven-point lead, 52-45, at 6:08. The Petrels would not score again, as the Tigers went on a 16-0 run to close out the game.

Trinity shot 35 percent from the field, 36 percent beyond the arc, and sank 12-13 free throws (92.3 percent). Oglethorpe hit 33 percent from the field, 22 percent in 3-pointers, and made only 58 percent at the line. The Petrels held a slight 38-36 advantage in rebounding.