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SALEM, Va. — Guilford College reached its zenith again Friday, falling to Williams 97-88 in a semifinal of the NCAA Division III Final Four. Star-crossed for the second year in a row in the men's basketball tournament, the Quakers fell to a host of shooting stars.

Williams was unconscious, hitting a record 16 shots from beyond the 3-point arc and scoring at will against a Guilford team built on defense. The shooting display left the Quakers bewildered.

The shots rained in from everywhere, over the Guilford man-to-man staple defense and even over a shrug and a zone.

"That didn't work out so well," said Tom Palombo, the stunned Guilford coach.

It was amazing to watch. The shots came quickly, fired over outstretched arms and leaping defenders. They came from almost every player Williams sent onto the floor, arching shots from the corners, laser shots from the top of the circle, archery shots seemingly from the heavens.

Rhett Bonner, one of the Guilford guards who had to watch it from up close, said it bordered on miraculous. He watched Williams sharpshooter Blake Schultz hit a shot without knowing where the basket was with Clay Henson, another Guilford guard, blocking his view.

"They're down there shooting contested 3-pointers," Bonner said. "Clay's got a hand in my man's face, and he can't even see the basket, and he's making 3s."

Williams scored 62 points in the second half, more than 11 of Guilford's opponents scored in entire games this season.

"They were scoring on every possession," Palombo said.

That the game was even close said a lot about the Quakers. With 4:25 to play, Guilford led 73-72. That was when Williams guard Alex Rubin came down the floor just as the Quakers set their defense. But before they could plant their feet, Rubin fired a 28-foot jumper that swished.

It was fitting. Williams scored on 17 of its last 18 possessions, gunning from deep, grazing shots off the rafters of the old Salem Civic Center, firing daggers from distances far beyond plausible range. Palombo tried everything, including the ill-fated zone. It looked like a 1-3-1, but it was shredded so quickly you couldn't tell.

Williams recognized it immediately, made a skip pass to the deep left, where Schultz found the hole in the zone and threw in a corner jumper in the midst of a rally that never really ended.

"We don't play very much zone," Palombo said. "We gave it a shot. We were all over him and he was making them. We figured maybe if we left him wide open maybe he would miss one."

He didn't. Nobody else for the Ephs did either. It was a Final Four record for 3-pointers against a school known for defense. The upperclassmen for Guilford, who had reached this game for the second straight year, had flashbacks to last year when Washington (Mo.) went off on the Quakers and Aaron Thompson hit eight 3-pointers.

"It was about the same thing as last year," Henson said.

Guilford could only stand and watch as shots sailed over the Quakers' heads and splashed into the net over and over again like something out of a bad dream.

"That's what it seemed like," Bonner said. "Especially down the stretch."

Guilford tried packing in its man defense, then tried extending it. Neither worked.

"We don't have the type of players to guard people 30 feet from the basket," Palombo said. "We can't do that. We don't have that kind of team. That's not how we're made."

No team is made to withstand what the Quakers saw Friday. It was an amazing display of basketball. Well, an amazing display of shooting the basketball anyway. For the second year in a row, Guilford reached the Final Four. And for the second year in a row, the Quakers ran into a white-hot team that couldn't miss.

Williams made 11 of its last 13 shots, one of the misses leading to a follow. The hot-shooting Ephs hit their last 12 free throws, failing to score on only one possession in the final eight minutes. The shots fell from the sky, from the edges of a swirling offense that seemed to lead logically and helplessly to shots from far, far away.

Palombo tried smiling as they rained in early. He grimaced as they fell in after halftime. He stood motionless as the last long laser fell, the 28-footer from Rubin who went up effortlessly and swished the shot almost from the logo on the Civic Center court, a logo placed there because it was considered too far from the basket to matter.

There was no such place in Salem on Friday. Williams made shots from everywhere, and the Guilford players will see them for the rest of their lives, maybe one day understanding how hard it was to get here two years in a row, and certainly understanding how amazing it was just to stand there and watch all those impossible shots fall from the heavens.

Contact Ed Hardin at 373-7069 or ed.hardin@news-record.com