Box Score

NEW LONDON, N.H. – February 21, 2012 – The Colby-Sawyer men's basketball team advanced to the North Atlantic Conference (NAC) semifinals after defeating Johnson State, 75-69 in quarterfinal action Tuesday evening.

Colby-Sawyer, the tournament's number-two seed, improves to 19-7 and will play the tournament's number-three seed, Maine-Farmington on Friday at 8:00 pm. The game will be played at Castleton, who is hosting the final four format with the semifinals being played on Friday afternoon and the championship game taking place on Saturday afternoon. Maine-Farmington advanced with an 85-72 win over New England College on Tuesday night. 

Senior Will Bardaglio (Wayne, Maine) led Colby-Sawyer with 19 points off the bench. He was 4-7 from beyond the arc and 5-6 from the free throw line. Freshman Mike Dias (Carver, Mass.) and senior James Tobin (Brookline, N.H.) added 15 points apiece. Junior Corey Willis (Easton, Mass.) knocked down three timely three pointers en route to 10 points for the game. 

Johnson State (6-20) was led by 25 points from junior Andy Bousono (Philadelphia, Pa.). He shot 8-15 from the floor and 3-4 from beyond the arc to lead all players. Sophomore Scott Moran (Orange, Conn.) added 16 points, while sophomore Billy Boyd (Walden, Vt.) contributed 11 points on 5-6 shooting. Sophomore Bryan Hickey (Barre, Vt.) scored eight points and grabbed a game-high eight rebounds.

The teams exchanged the first two buckets of the contest before Colby-Sawyer jumped out to a 10-4 lead. The Chargers were able to maintain the lead throughout, but couldn't get separation until Bardaglio hit a trey with 3:35 left to put the home team up 37-25. Bousono responded with five points for the Badgers to trim the lead, but Colby-Sawyer ended the frame with another trey from Bardaglio and a layup by Dias to take a 44-30 at the break.

Colby-Sawyer held a comfortable double-digit lead, which ballooned to as much as 19, midway through the second half, but Johnson State kept chipping away. Trailing 69-54 with less than three minutes to play, the Badgers turned up the defense and went on an 11-2 run capped by a layup from senior Alen Turan (Essex, Vt.). The Badgers closed the gap to six multiple times in the waning moments, but Colby-Sawyer knocked down free throws to put the game away 75-69.

The Badgers controlled the boards by a 36-22 margin. Colby-Sawyer had a 23-4 edge in bench scoring.