The second half was a thing of beauty for the Eastern Washington University men's basketball team.
 
The Eagles used a 11-1 run in the second half to erase a nine-point deficit and went on to beat the Jim Hayford-coached Seattle University Redhawks 74-66 on Saturday (Nov. 9) at the Redhawk Center on the SU campus in an annual clash of NCAA Division I rivals from within the state of Washington.
 
Junior Jacob Davison led the way with 25 points, and sophomore Kim Aiken Jr. equaled the fourth-best rebounding performance in school history with 19 to go along with 11 points.
 
Senior Tyler Kidd and Aiken each scored nine second-half points, and Davison had 13. Aiken had 14 boards after intermission. Eastern trailed at halftime 36-30 but out-scored the Redhawks 44-30 after that.
 
"It was a great team effort," said Eastern head coach Shantay Legans of his team's reversal of fortune in the second half. "Once you do that and everything goes well, you have outcomes like this. It wasn't a pretty game, but we got it done and the guys in our locker room are very, very excited."
 
Eastern trailed 41-32 early in the second half and were shooting at less than a 30-percent clip when the Eagles came alive. Eastern knotted the score at 45 at the 11:15 mark, then used an 11-1 run to turn a one-point lead into a double-digit advantage with 5:42 to play on a 3-pointer by Mason Peatling.
 
Davison scored six points in the run, and Kidd chipped in a layin. The Eagles held Seattle without a field goal for nearly five minutes, from 10:54 to the 4:59 mark. Eastern led by as many as 12 with three minutes to play, then made five free throws in the last 1:54 to hold on for the win.
 
Eastern sank just 39 percent of its shots for the game, but was at 57 percent in the second half and out-rebounded Seattle 25-15 in the second half. Seattle made only 29 percent in the first half and 35 percent for the game.
 
The Eagles have played Seattle at least once every season since 2009, and are 16-11 all-time versus the Redhawks. Hayford spent six seasons as EWU's head coach, with current Eagle head coach Shantay Legans serving on his coaching staff all six seasons. Meetings in the past two years have yielded an 84-64 Seattle victory two years ago and an 88-68 Redhawks win a year ago.
 
 
Records . . .
 
* Eastern is 2-0 on the season. An injury-plagued season in 2018-19 ended with a second-straight appearance in the Big Sky Conference Tournament championship game for the Eagles, and four of the main players from that squad return. Eastern had its fourth-straight season with 10 Big Sky wins or more and a sixth-straight year with a winning league record in finishing 12-9 in the league and 16-18 overall.
 
* Seattle is 1-2, having also lost at Washington State on Thursday (Nov. 7) in Pullman, Wash. The Redhawks beat Pacific Lutheran 98-64 in their opener after beating Saint Martin's 92-71 in an exhibition game. Seattle was 18-15 a year ago and 6-10 in the Western Athletic Conference to tie for seventh. Guard Terrell Brown returns averaging 14.1 points and 6.8 rebounds a year ago, and guard Morgan Means is back after having averages of 14.0 and 4.3. Myles Carter, a 6-foot-9 forward, averaged 12.9 points and 7.9 rebounds. Brown scored 31 versus the Eagles.
 
 
What's Next . . .
 
* Following the Seattle game, the Eagles play three games in the Gotham Classic versus Saint Louis, Boston College and High Point, before returning home for a Gothic Classic game versus Belmont on Nov. 26. The Saint Louis game is Wednesday, Nov. 13, and former Eagle head coach Ray Giacoletti is now on the Billiken's coaching staff. Eastern plays at Boston College a week later on Nov. 20, and High Point in North Carolina three days after that on Nov. 23.
 
 
Top Performers . . .
 
* Davison made 8-of-17 shots from the field, including 3-of-6 from the 3-point arc, and also had five rebounds and a pair of steals. Aiken hit 4-of-16 shots and missed all nine of his 3-point shots, but his 19 rebounds were the most by an Eagle since 2013 as he finished with his fifth career double-double. Only performances of 28, 22 and 21 boards rank ahead of him in Eastern history. Kidd finished with 13 points of 5-of-7 shooting from the field and also had five rebounds. Senior Mason Peatling played only 22 minutes because of foul trouble, but finished with 10 points, five rebounds and three blocked shots.
 
 
More Notes . . .
 
* Eastern is now 16-11 all-time against Seattle in a series that has included at least one game annually since 2009. In the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons, the Eagles and Redhawks played each other twice both seasons. In 2016-17, a pair of tightly-contested games both went to double overtime, with Eastern winning in Seattle 93-88 after being victorious in Cheney 80-76. In the 2015-16 season, Eastern won at home 76-70 and then five days later fell in Seattle by a 58-56 score. Eastern won in the 2014-15 season in Seattle 87-75, and the year before triumphed in Cheney 82-75.
 
* Before renewing their rivalry in 2009, the last meeting came on Nov. 22, 1985, when Eastern won 83-64 at Reese Court in Cheney, Wash. Until 2009, that was the lone game played between the two schools since EWU moved to NCAA Division I in the 1983-84 season. The first four meetings came in the 1945-46 season, and Eastern won all four of those games, as well as a pair the following season. A split followed in 1948-49, and Seattle swept a pair in the 1951-52 season. Seattle was in NCAA Division I from 1944-1980, with such star players as Elgin Baylor, John O'Brien, Clint Richardson and Frank Oleynick on its rosters. Baylor, in fact, led Seattle to the championship game of the NCAA Tournament where it lost 84-72 to Kentucky. Formerly known as the Chieftains, from 1980-2002 they were affiliated with NAIA and from 2002-2007 were a member of NCAA Division II.
 
* Senior Mason Peatling is back after earning second team All-Big Sky honors for the Eagles, with junior Jacob Davison earning third team accolades despite missing the last 10 games with an ankle injury. Both were among the six players chosen league-wide as preseason All-Big Sky selections for the 2019-20 season. Peatling averaged 15.3 points and 7.2 rebounds a year ago, while Davison averaged 15.2 per outing. Until he suffered an ankle injury on Feb. 16, 2019, and forcing him to miss the last 10 games, Davison had averaged 18.5 points in league play, including 23.8 points in his last nine outings. Peatling was also selected to the Big Sky All-Tournament team after averaging 20.3 points and 9.3 rebounds in three games while sinking 62.9 percent of his shots from the field. He missed EWU's first nine games with a toe injury, and his return turned out to be the turning point of the season for the Eagles.
 
* Peatling and Davison are joined by sophomore Kim Aiken Jr., who averaged 11.3 points, 8.3 rebounds and 2.0 blocked shots with a pair of double-doubles in his first postseason experience. As a result, he also earned Big Sky All-Tournament accolades. Aiken ended his redshirt freshman season with an average of 6.5 points and 4.9 rebounds per outing as a sub off the bench in 19 of the 30 games he played.
 
* Eastern's third returning starter is point guard Tyler Kidd, who averaged 12.0 points and 3.8 assists. In all, Eastern returns eight letterwinners while losing four. Eastern's 18-player roster is rounded out by six newcomers, a trio of 2018-19 redshirts and a transfer who had to sit out most of last season with an injury.
 
 
Comments from Head Coach Shantay Legans . . .
 
On Main Contributors: "Kim Aiken has unbelievable character. He's one of the only guys who can go 0-of-9 from the 3-point line, but didn't let that bother him and continued to do all of the dirty work. He had 19 rebounds – that is unbelievable – and he had to guard the other team's best player. Jacob played great and Tyler Kidd came off the bench and played amazing basketball."
 
On Effort: "If you don't get efforts like that you don't win games. This win was huge and it was a long time coming. It was well-deserved by our team – we were playing our first road game and this team is healthy. We rebounded the ball in the second half which is important, and we limited them at the 3-point line. It's an exciting time."
 
On Rebounding: "They had 11 offensive rebounds in the first half and they ended with 12. And Kim Aiken had 14 rebounds in the second half by himself. That's huge for us. Mason fouled out and Tanner Groves stepped up and was huge. If you rebound, play hard and you believe in each other, good things will happen. We are so happy to play the way we did. If Eagle Nation watched this game they would be proud of this team, and the fight we will give every single night."