Mar 16, 2021 4 min read

When you’re talking about winning basketball games by making a series of clutch free throws, you’re usually not talking about the Thiel men’s team.

The Tomcats shot only 58% from the free-throw line during the abbreviated regular season, and while trying to protect a late lead Tuesday night in the quarterfinals of the Presidents’ Athletic Conference tournament against Washington & Jefferson, Thiel clanked the front end of two important one-and-ones.

But with the game on the line in the closing seconds, Thiel got the basketball to its most experienced player, senior guard John Aarestrup, who delivered from the free-throw line when it counted most.

Aarestrup made four free throws in the final 11 seconds as Thiel held off a furious rally by W&J and upset the Presidents 69-64 at Salvitti Family Gymnasium.

“We got the ball in the right hands at the end of the game, our two senior guards, Aarestrup and Daquan Simmons,” Thiel coach Tim Loomis pointed out. “Those two guys can make free throws.”

The win sends Thiel (4-6) to the semifinals at top-seeded Westminster while W&J (7-3) experienced another round of PAC tournament frustration. Though the Presidents have shown steady improvement in the conference standings each year under head coach Ethan Stewart-Smith, they entered Tuesday having lost their opening game in the tournament each of the last two years – by a combined three points.

“No one in our locker room expected us to not be practicing (today),” Stewart-Smith said. “The season ending this way, it’s not what we expected.”

And W&J had plenty of reasons to expect a win. The Presidents beat the Tomcats 83-74 on the same court only six days earlier. And early in the second half of the rematch, W&J led 33-27.

That’s when Thiel started aggressively driving the ball to the basket instead of settling for jump shots as they did in their first 60 minutes against the Presidents.

“We wanted four passes and then, with about 10 on the shot clock, to go inside and that’s what we did,” Loomis explained.

The change sparked a 12-3 run that gave the Tomcats a 39-36 lead. Thiel took the lead for good at 53-51 with seven minutes remaining when a loose ball deflected right to the Tomcats’ Ahmad Tejumola under the basket for an easy layup. The basket sparked a 10-2 burst that was capped by a three-point play by Simmons with 3:45 remaining.

W&J, meanwhile, had lost its scoring touch. The Presidents shot only 39% for the game and made just 4 of 19 three-pointers.

“We struggled to generate quality shots,” Stewart-Smith said. “Thiel has really good, physical, quality one-on-one defenders. We struggled to get into a scramble situation where they had to jump to help. They forced us to make one-on-one guarded plays.”

“In the second half, we dug in defensively,” Loomis added.

Still, the Tomcats had to make free throws to win and that became a trouble spot. Missed free throws helped W&J, sparked by Nicholas Campalong, the team’s “sixth starter,” pull to within as close as two points down the stretch.

Campalong scored seven straight W&J points that cut Thiel’s lead to 65-63 with 14 seconds left. But Aarestrup made his four consecutive free throws to secure the win. Thiel made its last six free-throw attempts and was 13-for-19 on the night. The Tomcats attempted only five free throws in the regular-season loss to the Presidents.

Aarestrup finished with 10 points but played strong defense against Cameron Seemann, W&J’s leading scorer at 18.2 points per game. Seeman was held to 14.

Jake Livingston led W&J in scoring with 18 points before fouling out. Campalong and Kyran Mitchell each had nine points.

Kyiam Exum’s 12 points was tops for Thiel.

“We just ran out of time,” Stewart-Smith said.