STEPHENVILLE – The No. 19-ranked Angelo State Rams advanced to the program's first NCAA Division II South Central Championship semifinal round after earning an 85-79 quarterfinal win over Texas A&M-Commerce on Saturday at Wisdom Gym.
 
The Rams (27-5) were down 33-32 at halftime, but surged in the second half with Marsell Holden hitting five 3-pointers and the team shooting 59.4 percent from the field after being limited to 33.3 percent shooting in the first half. Holden finished the game with 22 points on six 3-pointers, while Demario Mayfield recorded a career-best and finished as the game's leading scorer with 24 points. Raijon Kelly added 14 points, seven rebounds and three assists and Chris Jones went for 12 points and three assists. Mayfield scored 18 of his 24 in the second half and also added seven rebounds and four assists as the Rams ended the Lions season a week after Commerce (24-8) had beat ASU in the LSC Championship finals.
 
ASU advances to the semifinals of the tournament where it will play at 5 p.m. on Sunday against Midwestern State which followed the Rams' win with a 58-56 victory over No. 2-seeded Metro State in the second game of the day. The Rams are 2-0 this season against the Mustangs and will meet their LSC rival in the NCAA postseason for the first time in school history. The Rams, who are making their fifth postseason appearance in program history and first since 2009, are now 2-5 all-time in the NCAA tournament with their only other win coming in a consolation game in 1989.
 
Bilal Richardson led the ASU bench with six rebounds, while Brentine Taylor scored four points and Thomas Brandsma scored two points and had four rebounds.
 
Holden gave the Rams the early second-half lead by hitting his second 3-pointer of the game just 30 seconds into the second half and ASU was up 42-37 when he hit again from beyond the arc with 17:17 remaining in the game. Commerce would trim its deficit to two on two occasions, but each time another Holden 3-pointer kept increasing ASU's lead back to five. At 54-49 with 13:07 to play, Holden hit his fifth 3-pointer of the game and was followed by a Brentine Taylor tip-in to give the Rams a seven-point lead. The lead went into double-digits for the first time on Holden's sixth 3-pointer with 11:32 remaining and with ASU leading 59-49. A fast-break basket with Jones finding DeQuavious Wagner would give the Rams their largest lead of the game at 12 points with 11 minutes remaining. 
 
Commerce cut the double-digit lead to five with a JR Owen 3-pointer with 3:38 to play, but Mayfield hit a layup, free throw and 3-pointer to push the lead to 11 with just over two minutes remaining. The lead was again five after a run by the Lions, but a pair of free throws by Holden sealed the win for the Rams who evened the season series against Commerce at 2-2.
 
Angelo State finished the game with a 43-36 rebounding advantage in the game and had a 16-10 scoring advantage in points off of turnovers against the Lions. The Rams shot 30-for-65 from the field, including going 10 of 27 from beyond the arc. The main negative for the Rams in the game came at the free-throw line where the team overcame a struggle where they shot 10-for-27 (37 percent).
 
Darrell Williams led the Lions with 22 points and 18 rebounds, while Ladon Carnegie added 13 points and Anthony Adams and Christian Macauley each scored 11 points. Commerce finished the game shooting 46.8 percent from the field, including going 8-for-22 from beyond the arc.
 
Kelly led the Rams with 10 points on a 4-for-6 shooting performance in the first half, while Mayfield had six points and four rebounds. The Rams, who led by as many as nine in the first half, shot 42.9 percent from the field in the first 20 minutes, but struggled by going 4 of 15 on 3-pointers and 6-for-14 from the free-throw line. ASU owned a 25-20 rebounding advantage over the Lions who shot 54.5 percent in the first half and went 6-for-11 from the free-throw line. Williams led the Lions with eight points and 10 rebounds in the first half despite being limited to 3-for-8 from the field.
 
POSTGAME QUOTES
 
"I'm really proud of my guys to play Commerce three times in a two-week period," ASU head coach Chris Beard said. "I thought our team was locked into our game plan and am really proud of how they executed. I glad we won't have to play Texas A&M-Commerce again. They are very difficult to defend. We knew we would have to have a low-turnover game and our players did a great job with that to give us a chance. We also knew we'd have to rebound with them. We didn't think in our wildest dreams that we would outrebound them, but we wanted our guys to compete. Tonight when we got into foul trouble we relied on the zone defense and I was proud of the players for buying into it."
 
"We had a great start to the second half," Beard said. "We have been a team all season that if we can get two or three stops in a row then we are tough team to play against and a tough team to beat. Our problems this season is when we can't get multiple stops. I thought our team defense was critical at the start of the second half."
 
"As a team this week in preparation we watched the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary about Coach Valvano's team Survive and Advance," Beard said. "One of the themes that kept coming up is that in the postseason it's really a game about runs. Everyone here is a good team. We talked to our team about runs this week and not to hang our heads when Commerce scored a couple of baskets. We had to stay to the grind and continue believing in what we were doing. I thought we responded tonight. I was proud of our consistency and effort."
 
 
"I probably shot my arm out this week (in practice) because I wanted to be the most confident guy coming in," Marsell Holden said. "I knew things were not going very well against them so I wanted to get up a lot of shots this week. My job is real easy when you play with the guys I play with. Raijon is great, Demario and Chris Jones really open up the floor. They found me and coach says to hunt shots, so that's what I did."
 
"We knew we didn't shoot the ball very well in the first half but we knew that if we stayed aggressive our shots were going to fall in the second half," Holden said. "We got on a roll."
 
"We've been trying to get him (Holden) shot since October 14 in the first day of practice," Beard said. "We believe in Marsell Holden's shot and do a lot to get him shots."