{"id":47121,"date":"2015-03-16T19:43:47","date_gmt":"2015-03-17T02:43:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=47121"},"modified":"2015-03-16T23:32:23","modified_gmt":"2015-03-17T06:32:23","slug":"azusa-pacific-35-cal-baptist-33-half","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=47121","title":{"rendered":"Elite Eight is Great for APU"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>

The APU Cougars move on to the Elite Eight after taking the NCAA Div II West Region!<\/p><\/div>\n

(Azusa) – Azusa Pacific went on a 27-8\u00a0run to open the second half\u00a0and went on to beat Cal Baptist 91-79 Monday night\u00a0at Felix Event Center. With the victory the Cougars\u00a0advanced to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Division II\u00a0Tournament.<\/p>\n

APU was up by just two\u00a0at the break but scored the first nine points of the second half t0 go up 11. The run eventually turned into a 21 point lead as the Cougs blitzed\u00a0the Lancers with a barrage of threes and\u00a0break away lay ups.\u00a0Troy Leaf again led the way with 23 points for Azusa Pacific but Kevin Stafford tossed in 17 including four huge threes.\u00a0Petar Kutlesic added 14 and Lydell Cardwell buried two consecutive threes off the bench in the first half and finished with eight.\u00a0APU had 32 bench points overall.<\/p>\n

\"Kevin<\/a>

Kevin Stafford continued his hot shooting pouring in 17!<\/p><\/div>\n

“I’m just so thankful\u00a0for APU and for having these players to coach. It’s been awesome to have the best seat in the house,” said Cougar head coach Justin Leslie.<\/p>\n

CBU actually led early in the contest jumping out to a 10-4 lead. But Azusa Pacific\u00a0bounced back\u00a0and behind Cardwell’s two threes went up 15-14.<\/p>\n

“To\u00a0see what Lydell Cardwell did tonight was special. He cares so much about the team,” Leaf said.<\/p>\n

The teams traded baskets the rest of the half with APU up 35-33\u00a0at halftime.<\/p>\n

You got the feeling that somebody was eventually going to go on a run\u00a0that team turned out to be APU.\u00a0Stafford’s three\u00a0increased the lead to 11. Bruce English hit a driving lay-up and the lead was 14. Andy Jones sank a baseline jumper\u00a0and Leaf\u00a0canned another three. By the time Robert Sandoval scored a bucket off a drive the margin\u00a0had ballooned to 21. Nobody on the Cougar side would say at that point it was over but the point was clearly made. The Cougars were headed to Indiana for the Elite Eight.<\/p>\n

Cal Baptist was hit with a technical late in the contest for calling a time out they didn’t have.\u00a0The Lancers did slice the lead\u00a0down to 13\u00a0but Jones threw down\u00a0a jam\u00a0with 1:28 left that\u00a0brought down the house.<\/p>\n

Gelaun Wheelwright did his best to keep Cal Baptist in the game finishing with 35 points\u00a0hitting 12 of 22 from the field and 6 of 12 from beyond the arc.\u00a0Taj Spencer had 13.<\/p>\n

Will Ward and Jones each had\u00a0seven\u00a0and Christian Katuala and Sandoval had six.<\/p>\n

“You can’t even imagine\u00a0the work we put in and how much we care about each other,”\u00a0Leaf said.<\/p>\n

Leslie, Leaf and Stafford all agreed on one thing. The\u00a0one word that best describes the season. “What’s up on the wall?” Leslie asked. “Sacrifice,”\u00a0Leaf said. Yes Sacrifice they all said.<\/p>\n

Leaf was named the\u00a0MVP of the West Regional.\u00a0Leaf and Stafford made the All-West Region team.<\/p>\n

The Elite Eight will be played in Indiana March 25-28.<\/p>\n

“When do we get back\u00a0to work?” Well I’ll be here at 7:30 tomorrow morning,” Leslie said. “I have a class to teach.”<\/p>\n

CB 33\u00a0 46\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 79<\/p>\n

AP 35\u00a0 56\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a091<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Azusa) – Azusa Pacific went on a 27-8\u00a0run to open the second half\u00a0and went on to beat Cal Baptist 91-79 Monday night\u00a0at Felix Event Center. With the victory the Cougars\u00a0advanced to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Division II\u00a0Tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[871],"tags":[10828,8824,4944,10929,8828,8846,10930,10961,11046,10888,10826,7156,11047,8830],"class_list":["post-47121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-college","tag-andy-jones","tag-azusa-pacific-basketball","tag-bruce-english","tag-cal-baptist-basketball","tag-christian-katuala","tag-felix-event-center","tag-gelaun-wheelwright","tag-justin-leslie","tag-ncaa-division-ii","tag-petar-kutlesic","tag-robert-sandoval","tag-sweet-sixteen","tag-taj-spencer","tag-troy-leaf"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47121"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47140,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47121\/revisions\/47140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}