By Terry Boehmker
NKyTribune sports reporter
Thomas More University men’s and women’s basketball teams won back-to-back games on their home court in the opening round of the NAIA national playoffs on Friday.
The TMU women rolled to a 89-42 win over Haskell (Kansas) in an afternoon game at Connor Convocation Center. The TMU men had a tougher time defeating Grand View (Iowa), 81-74, in the evening session.
The finals of the first round brackets at TMU will be played Saturday. The Saints’ opponents will be Grand View in the women’s final at 3 p.m. and Stillman (Iowa) in the men’s final at 6 p.m.
The winners of those games will advance to the 16-team NAIA national tournaments scheduled for March 17-22 in Sioux City, Iowa, for women and Kansas City, Mo., for men.
The TMU men (28-4) had a slim 69-63 lead with 3:13 remaining in its win over Grand View. The Saints pulled away at the end with their final 12 points scored by four players.
Garren Bertsch hit a 3-point shot and made a layup to account for five of the 12 points. Jacob Jones came up with a steal that resulted in a slam dunk for a 79-69 lead with 52 seconds remaining.
Both teams shot the ball well, but TMU had a 12-8 advantage in 3-point goals with seven players hitting treys. Junior center Ryan Batte finished with a team-high 21 points, five assists and three rebounds for the Saints. Reid Jolly had 20 points, three assists and seven rebounds.
Playing on their home court certainly paid off for the TMU women (27-4). They shot 48.6 percent (36 of 74) from the field compared to Haskell’s 25.4 percent (18 of 71). The Saints also had a 33-12 scoring advantage from behind the 3-point line.
The leading scorer for TMU was senior guard Taylor Clos with 17 points, followed by Zoie Barth (15), Alex Smith (14) and Alexa Chrisman (11). The Saints had 21 assists on 36 field goals with Barth, Maggie Jones and Emily Simon getting four each.
TMU took a 47-16 lead in the first half by shooting 50 percent (17 of 34) from both the field overall and 3-point range (8 of 16). The Saints’ leading scorer at the break was Barth with 13 points. Clos and Smith each scored nine points coming off the bench.
The Saints put the game away with a 26-10 run in the third quarter. Most of the points in that period were also scored by reserve players with Clos getting eight.
TMU dominated the boards, 52-28, in the victory. Chrisman had a team-high nine rebounds. Smith and Simon each pulled down seven missed shots.