SALEM, Va. (AP) Kevin Shay's final college game ended the best way possible, with Otterbein celebrating winning the NCAA Division III national championship and the senior guard as one of the stars.

"This moment's unbelievable," Shay said after scoring 29 points Saturday in the Cardinals' 102-83 victory against Elizabethtown. "And it's an unbelievable achievement for Coach."

Coach would be Dick Reynolds, who is in his 30th year at the small school outside Columbus, Ohio. Reynolds' teams had made 12 previous appearances in the national tournament, but never reached the Final Four.

"Some people have asked, `What took you so long?" he joked.

But Shay, who stood clutching a piece of the championship net and a game ball, talking about his coach of the last four years was serious.

"For him, he's been through this so many years that he understands what just happened more than anyone," Shay said. "He was the one that had the vision and he was the one that that had the most say over everything. He's the one that deserves the most credit."

For Reynolds, whose career record improved to 531-289, the victory was possible because so many Cardinals made big plays down the stretch.

"I thought we held our poise, and we had some people step up that needed to step up, which happens in championship games," he said.

Chief among them was Jeff Gibbs, who had 25 points and a Final Four-record 25 rebounds, but Shay and others were not far behind. Shay had 13 points in a command-stealing 34-9 run, and freshman Tony Borghese had 11.

"It feels great," said Gibbs, who also played tight end for the Cardinals' football team. "I've been beat up all season, and I guess it paid off."

After preparing mostly to stop Gibbs, the Blue Jays (29-3) admitted even they were surprised by the storm of 3-pointers during the spurt.

"They had more balance than we thought they had," Bob Porambo said.

As part of their strategy, the Blue Jays ran hard all night, in part trying to get Gibbs in foul trouble, and in part hoping their stamina and depth would win out. Instead, they were the ones dragging at the end.

"For about three quarters of the game, we were where we wanted to be," Elizabethtown coach Bob Schlosser said. "When they made that run, I thought we gassed out a bit and there wasn't a lot we could do about it."

Porambo agreed.

"We just had nothing left," said Porambo, who had 17 points to share team scoring honors for the Pennsylvania school with Brian Loftus. Jon English added 14.

The Cardinals (30-3) turned a 65-54 deficit that seemed in danger of getting worse into a runaway that had Salem Civic Center abuzz.

"Once we got rolling, it was like just another game," Shay said. "It was amazing to see the differences in our faces from the first half to the second half. In the first half, we hurried and did not play our game. In the second half, we slowed down and everything was downhill from there."

Borghese added 21 points and eight assists for Otterbein.

The Blue Jays used a three-point play by Loftus and 3-pointers by Brian Marquette and Loftus in a 9-0 run to take a 65-54 lead with 14:43 to play. The Cardinals had four turnovers in the drought, and a possession when three shots from in close yielded nothing but growing frustration.

But just as Otterbein appeared most vulnerable to collapse, Scott Hadley scored on a putback, Shay hit two free throws and followed with a rainbow 3-pointer, quickly pulling the Cardinals within 65-61.

The momentum now theirs, the Cardinals fed off it the rest of the way, coming up with loose balls, blocking shots and whipping their portion of the crowd into a frenzy of anticipation.

After the 7-0 run, the Cardinals pulled even at 71, fell behind 74-72 on a 3-pointer by Porambo, then scored 16 points in a row to put it away.

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