SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – Despite rallying from an 11-point deficit with under five minutes to play, Augusta State managed only two points over the final two minutes and fell 74-70 to unranked Cal Poly Pomona in the National Semifinals of the NCAA Elite Eight. With the loss, the Jaguars’ season comes to a close with a 30-5 record while Cal Poly Pomona (25-7) advances to the National Championship game on Saturday.

“We got outplayed tonight,” said ASU head coach Dip Metress. “Give Cal Poly all the credit in the world -- they hurt us in transition and we just didn’t play very well.”

The Jaguars were down 63-52 with 5:59 to play following a layup from CPP’s Robert Summers, but responded with a 14-2 run over the next two and half minutes to take a 66-65 lead, their first lead since 2-0 in the first half. Ben Madgen keyed the rally with back-to-back 3-pointers, the only two the junior made in the game, followed by five straight points from Daniel Dixon.

Pomona went back up on a Larry Gordon layin, which was answered by a layup from Garret Siler to give ASU a 68-67 lead with 2:04 to play. But the Jaguars would get only one more bucket, a putback from Fred Brathwaite with 39 seconds left, as Cal Poly finished the game with a 7-2 run.

“Whenever you take off your jersey, you feel like you’ll have another game to play,” said Siler, who finished his career as the NCAA’s all-time career leader among all divisions in field goal percentage (.745). “We’ve been successful and we’ve put a lot of hard work in the program. I told the team in the locker room that they have to get back to this point.”

ASU struggled in the first half, hitting only one of nine three-pointers, but were only down three with 12:35 to go in the period. The Broncos went on a 14-7 run over the next five minutes to open up their first double-digit lead 23-13 following a 3-pointer from Walter Thompson. ASU cut its deficit back to four with layups from Siler, Dixon and Greg Hire. A Brathwaite alley-oop dunk sliced the Broncos’ lead to two with 4:16 to go in the first and the Jaguars trailed 31-27 at the half.

“Our transition defense really hurt us,” said Metress. “We missed some shots, but we didn’t really take any bad shots. We were doing some good things, but we might have used too much energy to get back into it.”

Siler opened the second half with a layup to cut the lead to two, but Pomona got a 3-pointer from Gordon to push the lead back to five. That lead grew back to 10 with 8:49 to play following two free throws from Summers and reached 11 for the first time with 7:23 to go on a Gordon layup.

Brathwaite hit 9-of-13 shots from the floor to lead ASU with 21 points. He also added seven rebounds. Siler added 17 and a game-high nine boards while Madgen finished with 12 and Dixon 10. The Jags hit 23 percent from 3-point range, their second-lowest output of the season, and seven of 14 free throws, their lowest percentage this year.

Gordon led Cal Poly Pomona with 20 points and 11 rebounds. Tobias Jahn, Thompson and Summers each scored 11 for the Broncos, who advance to their first championship game. CPP will face the winner of the Findlay/Central Missouri State game on Saturday at 1:00 pm.

Siler closed his career with 1,599 points scored, the seven-best total in school history and the eighth-best mark in Peach Belt Conference history. Madgen will enter his senior wseason as the No. 4 scorer in school history with 1,670 points and the fifth-leading scorer in PBC annals.

The Jaguar senior class of Siler, fellow center Jason Killeen and starting point guard Steve Smith posted an 81-19 (.810) record the last three seasons, the most victories over a three-year span in school history.

The Jags set school records for wins in a season (30) and games played in a season (35) while Siler set school standards for field goal percentage in a single season (.790), career field-goal percentage (.745) and career starts (106). (Box Score)