Simpson beats Buena Vista in thriller; Barragan reaches milestone

 Highlights

INDIANOLA, Iowa -  The big man for the Simpson men's basketball team came up big on Wednesday night.

Cornelius Mosby knocked down three free throws with 1.3 seconds left in a pulse-pounding, 76-73 win over Buena Vista at Cowles Fieldhouse.

With the game tied and only seconds remaining, a broken inbounds play resulted in Mosby getting fouled in the act of shooting a desperation 3-pointer with 1.3 seconds left. All three buckets fell and Chad Boston sealed the game by intercepting the ensuing inbounds pass as time expired.

"I knew he was going to make all of them," senior guard Zack Barragan said. "I had total faith in him to hit those three foul shots and for us to win the game."

The Storm (10-11, 7-6 Iowa Conference) started the second half with a 21-7 run lead by Mosby, who finished with 22 points and 12 rebounds. The senior produced a double-double in the second half alone with 21 points and 10 rebounds, 14 of which came in the first seven minutes.

Barragan finished with 16 points while becoming only the 18th player in Simpson history to reach the 1,000 point plateau. A pair of free throws in the second half gave him exactly 1,000 points in his career. Earlier this year he set the mark for 3-pointers in a career when he made his 174th, also against Buena Vista.

"It's a good accomplishment, but once we got the win against BV we moved up a spot and have one more game in conference so that's the main thing," Barragan said. "I don't really care about 1,000 points."

Doug Bissen led the way with 22 points and six boards for the Beavers (12-10, 8-5), who dropped their sixth-straight in the series. Wes Nordquist added 15 and six rebounds.

Holding the Beavers to only one field goal in the first eight minutes, the Storm enjoyed their largest lead of the game at eight points. But Buena Vista regained a 66-65 lead with 4:26 left on a 3-pointer by Jeff Jansen and pushed the advantage to three after a Nordquist layup.

A pull-up jumper by Elijah Knox gave Simpson a 71-70 lead with 1:39 left and a pair of free throws by Barragan extended the lead to three before Bissen made good on one of two from the charity stripe and Michael Kaufmann's lay-in tied the game with less than 8 seconds left.

A key-component to Simpson's second-half success was its performance from the free-throw line. The Storm improved from 3 of 11 free throw shooting in the first half to 13 of 17 in the second.

"If we don't make free throws, we don't deserve to win," head coach Charles Zanders said. "We got it done." 

The Storm travel to Mount Vernon, Iowa to face Cornell on Saturday. Tipoff is set for 4 p.m.