Simpson closes campaign in A-R-C Semifinals

LINCOLN, Neb. -- The fifth-seeded Simpson men's basketball team looked for the upset of top-seeded Nebraska Wesleyan on Thursday in the semifinals of the American Rivers Conference Tournament, but fell 91-77 to close out its 2019-20 campaign.

The Storm (14-13) aimed for back-to-back wins over the Prairie Wolves (23-3) for the first time since the 2009-10 season. This is the second-straight season Nebraska Wesleyan has ended Simpson's playoff journey in the A-R-C Tournament Semifinals.

Conor Riordan connected on four triples for 22 points to end the year with five-straight contests with 20-or-more points. Adam Reiter grabbed 15 rebounds for a season best and added 17 points for his 11th double-double. Nick Janssen produced 12 points on four 3-pointers and Kyle Wagner chipped in 10.

The contest started in Simpson's favor by jumping out to a quick 7-3 advantage with four points from Reiter. The top offense in the league bounced back for a 20-3 run to steal the momentum in front of the home crowd inside Snyder Arena.

Reiter stepped it up a notch over the next three minutes of play to get the Storm back in the contest. The senior scored seven points during an 11-1 spree to bring the game to within three under the halfway point in the first.The Prairie Wolves went ahead by seven a short time later. Reiter made a basket as time expired in the first to trim the deficit to 39-35.

For the first time since the 15-minute mark of the first stanza, Simpson tied the game coming on four-straight points by Riordan to make it 39-39 to start the second. Nebraska Wesleyan played keep away after that to execute another scoring spree, this time on a 15-2 run. The scoring drought for Simpson proved costly as the squad was unable to come within 10 points the rest of the way.

The Storm used their outside shooting to drain 14 treys for its second most of the year. The offense snapped a streak of four contests shooting better than 50% with its 41.8% output tonight. Both teams scored nine points off the bench, which were all provided by Andrew Curran's three triples for Simpson.

Simpson graduates eight seniors that combined to play in 385 career games and scored 3,756 career points during that span. The senior class of Nick Janssen, Jared Bacon, Kenton Thoms, Kyle Wagner, Adam Reiter, Conor Riordan, Ben Bjorkgren and Gable Johnson participated in four-straight conference tournaments.