NEWBERRY, S.C. --- In the longest game in tournament history, the fifth-seeded Tusculum Pioneers outlasted No. 4 seed Newberry, 67-62 in triple overtime Wednesday night at Eleazer Arena in a quarterfinal contest of the 2011 Food Lion South Atlantic Conference Tournament.
Tusculum junior Justin Steigerwald established career highs with 22 points, 12 rebounds and four blocked shots, while senior Rob Troutman finished with 14 markers, including his 1,000th career point. Junior Kevin Vest added 14 points and seven rebounds, while junior Tommy Klempin accounted for four points and eight rebounds before fouling out in overtime.
Tusculum (12-17) advances to the tournament semifinals on Saturday to take on top-seeded Lincoln Memorial at 5:30 p.m. at the Catawba Valley Community College Arena in Hickory, N.C. This will be Tusculum's fifth trip to the SAC Tournament semifinal round.
Jawaun Lockhart and Matt Dixon tallied 12 and 11 points off the bench, respectively as the Newberry reserves outscored the TC bench by a 38-8 margin.
But the name of the game on Wednesday was defense as Tusculum limited the Wolves (13-14) to shoot just 27.4 percent from the floor, including its final six shots, all coming from beyond the arc. Newberry's last made field goal game with eight seconds remaining in the first extra stanza.
Neither team was ever able to extend their lead to more than six points during the game as TC held the league's top scoring offense to its lowest point total of the season.
The two sides were inefficient in the first half as they combined to make just 13 field goals in the opening 20 minutes. A late Lockhart layup gave the Wolves a 20-19 lead at the intermission.
Tusculum led by as many as five points under five minutes to play in regulation, but Dixon nailed two straight 3-pointers to give Newberry a 42-41 lead with two minutes left in regulation.
A Vest layup with 18.9 seconds remaining gave TC a two-point edge, but a Davis tip-in of a Dixon miss tied things up with eight seconds to go. A Steigerwald turnover gave Newberry a chance to end the game in regulation, but a last-second three-pointer by Lockhart off target, sending the game to the extra frames.
The first overtime had the offensive fireworks regulation was missing. After over 1:20 without either side scoring, Troutman put Tusculum ahead with a long three-pointer, which was answered by a trey from Patrick Ryan. Another Troutman triple was answered on the next trip down the floor by Coleman Young. The teams traded buckets, and Chris Reynolds sent the game to the second overtime with a put-back of his own missed shot to make it 56-56 after 45 minutes.
The second overtime was quite sluggish in comparison, as a pair of Davis free throws and a jumper from TC's Brett Williams accounted for the only scoring.
Tusculum took the lead in the third overtime on a quick lay-up by Steigerwald and he followed by making one of two free throws as Tusculum led 61-58 at the 4:09 mark of the frame. Brunes Charles cut the deficit back to one with a pair of free throws eight seconds later, but Troutman canned a jumper with three minutes left in the third overtime for his 1,000th career point and a 63-60 lead.
TC came up with a pair of steals down the stretch as Troutman canned a pair of critical free throws and Dionte Grey converted a layup with three seconds remaining to put the game out of reach.
Steigerwald and Vest also established school single-game records playing in an amazing 54 minutes in the contest.
For Troutman, he becomes the 22nd player in school history to eclipse the 1,000-point plateau for his career. His 1,003 points ranks him 20th on the Tusculum all-time scoring list.
The triple overtime game matches the longest in school history with the previous record coming on Feb. 17, 1979 in a three-overtime contest at Lincoln Memorial.
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