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ASHEVILLE, NC--Reggie Middleton scored 25 points and Andre Jones finished with 14 to lead No. 6 seeded Winthrop to a 71-55 victory over No. 3 seeded Campbell in the quarterfinals of the 2012 Advance Auto Parts Big South Conference Championship being held at Kimmel Arena on the campus of UNC Asheville.

Winthrop will now face VMI in the semi-finals at 6 p.m. Thursday on ESPNU.  The No. 7 seeded Keydets stunned No. 2 seed Coastal Carolina 85-68 in the first game of the day.

The win snapped a three-game losing skid for Winthrop and avenged two regular season losses to Campbell.  Winthrop improves to 12-19 while Campbell ends its season at 17-15 as the Fighting Camels dropped their fourth straight game.

"I thought this was a really gutsy win," said Winthrop head coach Randy Peele.  "I've been preaching that to get to the championship game, you have to defend, you have to rebound and you have to take care of the ball.  Today we did all of those things.  Campbell has a very talented team and we were able to hold them to 55 points.  Reggie Middleton was tremendous for us.  He made some deep threes and he got into the lane for some layups."

After falling behind 2-0 after Campbell's Trey Freeman scored on a baseline jumper in the opening seconds, Middleton drilled a 3-pointer to give the Eagles a 3-2 lead and Winthrop never trailed thereafter.  Middleton came within one point of equaling his career-high which he set back in November against Drake in the Paradise Jam.  The 6-1 senior guard connected on 5 of 10 threes and was a perfect 6 of 6 from the line. 

"We needed for our seniors to step up tonight and take big shots, and I think that is what Andre and I did," said Middleton, who moved past former Eagle Craig Bradshaw into 15th place on the Winthrop career scoring list.  "Tonight we decided to do that."

Peele said that when you get to this time of the year, your seniors have to be your best players and certainly your most productive players.  "Those guys did that today."

Campbell managed to tie the game twice in the first half at 7-7 and 12-12, but Winthrop broke the tie on a follow-up dunk by Gideon Gamble off a missed layup by Jones to put the Eagles back ahead.  Jones gave his team and the Winthrop fans a big scare after falling to floor after the missed layup.  He had to be assisted off the floor to the locker room with 12:09 remaining on the clock, but returned about six minutes later with Winthrop holding a 23-19 lead.

Middleton started Winthrop on a 11-2 run with another trey and Jones ended it with his first basket of the game, a 3-pointer with 1:31 left in the first half that gave the Eagles a 34-21 advantage.  Campbell closed the half with a 5-1 run to trail 35-26 at halftime.

Jones and Middleton opened the second half with back-to-back 3-pointers to push the lead up to 15 points at 41-26 with 18:15 remaining to play.  The Eagles increased their double digit lead to as many as 19 points at 57-38 after Middleton connected again on a long distance shot at the 10:40 mark.

Campbell then outscored the Eagles 11-2 over the next six minutes to get the deficit back to singles digits at 59-50, but Middleton converted two free throws to put his team back up by 11 at 51-40 with 3:25 left and Campbell would get no closer than 10 points for the remainder of the game.

In addition to the scoring performances of Middleton and Jones, who combined to make nine 3-pointers, sophomore forward Joab Jerome played a key role offensively and defensively.  He scored eight points and dished out a career-high nine assists.  Senior center George Valentine came up with another key defensive effort to go along with seven rebounds.  Valentine held First-Team All-Big South center Eric Griffin in check for much of the game.  Griffin finished with eight points, but didn't get his first field goal until the second half.