The Eastern Washington University men's basketball team played its third of five-straight road games tonight (Jan. 29) at Montana in Missoula, Mont. The Eagles suffered their second-straight loss, dropping a heartbreaker to the Grizzlies by a final score of 61-59.
 
The Eagles held a lead with 4:28 left to play after the Grizzlies didn't score for nearly seven minutes, but it was Montana with the 59-56 advantage with 18 seconds left on the clock. That's when Steele Venters hit a corner three, tying the game at 59-59. With three seconds left, a foul was called on Eastern Washington and Montana made both attempts from the line to win 61-59.
 
With tonight's loss, Eastern is now 11-10 overall and 5-5 in Big Sky Conference play. Montana wins its 13^th-straight at home, fourth-straight overall, and improve to 15-6 and 8-2. The Grizzlies claimed both regular season meetings over the Eagles this year.
 
Linton Acliese III led the way with 16 points to go with seven boards. Angelo Allegri turned in his second double-double of the year with 11 points and 11 rebounds, and Ethan Price added 10 points.

"It's tough. This final wall that we have to breakthrough is the toughest one. I told our players in the locker room that we have to do this together, and we're trying to do something that's really, really, hard. We're putting together a team, building chemistry and learning these lessons during the course of the year rather than building it over the course of a few years. This wall is really, really, tough to breakthrough but we're close. We have to continue to grow," said head coach David Riley. "Montana started off five-of-six in the second half, but it's another game overall where we played pretty good defense. We took a big step from the last time we played Montana in protecting the paint. Looking back at some of the plays that lost us the game, we gave up zero offensive rebounds in the first half but they got six huge ones in the second half that really helped their momentum. We have to find a way to not let those plays happen."
 
Eastern Washington kept it close for the entire first half. The Eagles jumped out to a 5-0 lead but the Grizzlies had tied it up by the first media timeout. Down the stretch, Montana built its largest lead of 20-13, but the Eagles continued to hang around. An Angelo Allegri three-pointer followed by a dunk from Casey Jones trimmed the deficit down to 20-18.
 
Eastern started to get hot, finding a spurt where it made six out of eight field goal attempts come within one bucket, 32-30. Ethan Price went to the line and made two free throw attempts to tie the game 32-32. Despite holding Montana without a field goal for the final 4:17 of the half, the Eagles trailed 34-32 at the break.
 
Montana created distance early in the second half, outscoring Eastern Washington 12-4 in the first five minutes for its largest lead of 46-36. After not making a field goal for 4:24, Eastern Washington used a quick 6-0 run to trim the deficit back down to single digits, 48-44, while holding the Grizzlies scoreless for three and a half minutes.
 
Eastern Washington took advantage of another scoreless drought of over six and a half minutes for Montana. Ellis Magnuson fired off a triple and Steele Venters hit a jumper to cut the lead to one, 50-49 with 8:02 left to play. After that, Eastern didn't score for 3:19, but Allegri drained another triple to give EWU a 52-50 lead with 4:28 to go for an 8-0 run. In all, Eastern Washington outscored Montana 14-2 over 9:42 of play.
 
The lead was short lived, as Montana went on an 7-0 run to pull ahead 57-52, holding Eastern Washington without a basket for 3:47. With 32 seconds remaining, Linton Acliese III made two free throw attempts to make it a three-point game, 57-54. The Grizzlies pulled ahead 58-54 before Rylan Bergersen got sent to the line and made both, making it a 58-56 game with 26 seconds left.
 
With 18 seconds remaining, Venters made his first triple of the game from the corner to tie things up 59-59. Moments later, Eastern Washington committed a foul to send Parker to the line. He made both with three seconds on the clock, as the Grizzlies won 61-59.
 
TOP PERFORMANCES: Linton Acliese III scored in double figures for the ninth-straight game, adding 16 points and seven rebounds. He was 6-of-13 from the field with a three-point, and 3-for-3 from the free throw line. He also had two assists and one steal.
 
Angelo Allegri earned his second double-double of the season with 11 points and 11 rebounds. He drained three three-point field goals and led the team with two steals.
 
Ethan Price went 4-for-10 from the field and 2-for-2 from the free throw line to score 10 points to go with five rebounds and two assists.
 
Rylan Bergersen scored eight points to go with four rebounds, five assists, a block and a steal.
 
INSIDE THE BOX SCORE: Eastern Washington shot 37 percent from the field (21-57), 25 percent from three-point range (6-24) and 92 percent from the free throw line (11-12). Montana was 21-for-54 from the field, 4-for-15 from behind the arc and 15-for-22 from the free throw line.
 
The won the rebounding battle, 40-to-34, and both teams were even in the paint, 26-26. Eastern committed 13 turnovers to Montana's eight.
 
UP NEXT: The final leg of the road trip takes place on Monday, Jan. 31 at Weber State. Tip-off is set for 6 p.m. Pacific time in Ogden, Utah. The game was originally supposed to take place on Feb. 15 but was postponed due to COVID-19 issues in Eastern's program. Fans can watch the game on ESPN+ or Larry Weir will have the call on 700-AM ESPN.