CSR (Men's Basketball Upsets Aurora In NCAA III Tournament)

FINAL CALVIN SPORTS REPORT FOR MARCH 2, 2007

CALVIN UPSETS AURORA IN THRILLER

MEN'S BASKETBALL
Calvin 69, Aurora 68
(Written by Bruce VanBaren '09)

AURORA, IL - Calvin pulled out a thrilling victory in the first round of the
NCAA tournament, topping 14th-ranked Aurora University 69-68. Calvin will face
rival Hope for a record fifth time tomorrow night at Aurora University. Hope
defeated University of Chicago behind Stephen Cramer's 32 points.

"It's going to be a lot of fun; it's going to be a great atmosphere," sophomore
Caleb Veldhouse (Sioux Falls Christian) said. "Hope's a great team. We're two
and two against them on the season, this is the fifth game and this is when it
means the most."

Calvin dropped its first two meetings with the Flying Dutchmen, before winning
two straight games at the DeVos Fieldhouse. In the teams' most recent meeting,
junior Derek Griffin's (Muskegon CC) basket with 4.6 seconds left in the MIAA
tournament Championship game sent Calvin to the NCAA tournament with the
league's automatic bid.

Calvin will try to make it three straight wins over Hope Saturday night at 7:30
CST (8:30 EST) at Aurora University.

The Knights trailed only once in tonight's win over Aurora as Veldhouse and
Griffin combined for 9 of 20 from the three point line to lead the Knights past
the Spartans.

With 1:53 left in the game, Griffin's split two defenders to get through the
lane and gave the Knights a 66-62 lead. After Aurora missed a jumper, Dustin
Smith (Hamilton) hit one of two free throws to put the Knights up by three
points with 29 seconds remaining.

Aurora's Darrick Leonard, who led all scorers with 21 points, hit a difficult
three to cut the Knight's lead to two with 21 seconds remaining. Matt Veltema
(Calvin Christian) drained two clutch free throws that would prove to be the
difference to put the Knights up 69-65.

Leonard marched right down the court and nailed another difficult three point
shot to cut the lead to one. Calvin missed two free throws with 4.9 seconds
left, but it didn't matter as a long Aurora three pointer at the buzzer was
well off the mark.

"The first thing I said to the guys after the game was, they don't call it
survive and advance for nothing," Coach Kevin Vande Streek said. "That second
half was a survival. We made a couple of plays down the stretch, and we made a
couple of really nice defensive plays. We had just enough."

Calvin led the entire game with the exception of the 3 minutes into the game
and after Leonard tied the game with a jumper with 13:08. Still Vande Streek
wasn't comfortable.

"When you play good teams, a 10 to 12 point lead doesn't really mean anything,"
Vande Streek said. "One thing we talked about before the game was to play the
full 40 minutes. You can't quit and certainly that was evident today."

Aurora Coach James Lancaster was very impressed with Calvin.

"It's hard to simulate Calvin's pressure and their length [in practice],"
Lancaster said. "I was concerned with how quick they came out of the gate.
They made the plays when they needed; you got to give Calvin credit for keeping
us at that distance."

"When people ask me what I do, I say I coach division III basketball," he
continued. "Then they ask me, what is division III basketball all about. I
wish I could take a picture of the Calvin basketball program."

Veltema joined Griffin and Veldhouse in double figures, scoring 11 points.
Kyle Snoeyink (Calvin Christian) led the team with 10 rebounds, adding 6
points. As a team, Calvin shot 36.7% from the field and 50% (13 of 26) from
beyond the arc.

Aurora shot 39.1% from the field and 44.4% (12 of 27) from three point range.
Both teams grabbed 41 rebounds.

"For being as young as we are I thought we did a great job tonight," Vande
Streek said.

Saturday's Calvin-Hope meeting will feature the 166th meeting between the two
rivals. Calvin leads the all-time series 83-82. It will mark the sixth time the
two teams have met in NCAA III Tournament play with Calvin winning four of the
previous five meetings but with Hope winning the last NCAA III Tournament
encounter - a 70-67 decision in the second round last year. Saturday's game
will also mark just the second time that Calvin and Hope will have played each
other outside the state of Michigan as the two teams met in November of 1980 in
a non-conference tournament hosted by Central College in Pella, Iowa.

Jeff Febus
Sports Information Director
Calvin College
(616) 526-6169 Office
(616) 526-8551 Fax
Received on Sat Mar 3 01:15:18 2007