CHENEY, Wash. — The Eastern Washington Eagles (13-7) jumped out to a big halftime lead before cruising to a foul-filled 85-70 win over Northern Arizona (10-11) at Reese Court in Cheney on Saturday. It was the Eagles' ninth consecutive win as they improved to 7-0 in conference play and closed out a perfect January.
Tied 9-9 early in the first, Eastern jumped in front with a 12-2 run capped by 3-pointers from Cedric Coward and Dane Erikstrup to make it 21-11. Largely on the back of their defense, which held NAU to just 33.3% shooting in the period, they steadily built the lead further, pushing it out to 19 at the break, 44-25.
"We want to make sure the right guys are shooting," said head coach David Riley of their defensive effort. "We're a really scout-based team. These guys do a really good job of studying the scouting report, especially on two days' notice."
EWU lost a little focus early in the second as turnovers, improved shooting and a quick 7-0 spurt from the Lumberjacks cut the lead to 9 with 9:30 remaining. That's as close as NAU got. Guard Jake Kyman hit his second 3 of the game and Eastern continued to earn trips to the foul line to keep the Jacks at arm's length the rest of the way.
The Eags finished with a season-high 30 free throw attempts — converting 21 — as NAU was called for 25 personal fouls, tied for the most EWU has drawn this year. Eastern finished with 22 fouls, their highest total against a Big Sky opponent.
"Games always have a point where they get to that stage," said forward Ethan Price. "It's kind of just how you deal with it (that matters). We had that little spell where we let it get down to a 10- or 15-point game but we got the win and that's the big thing."
Price led EWU with 20 points on 6-of-10 from the floor, 2-5 from 3-point range and 6-6 from the charity stripe. It was the Englishman's third game with 20 or more points this season.
Eastern also cleaned the glass well, pulling down 41 rebounds as a team including 14 on offense, leading to 19 second chance points. NAU finished with 23. The plus-18 margin is their highest against a Division-I team this year; they also finished plus-18 against Portland Bible College on Dec. 13.
"That's been our biggest thing this week is offensive rebounds. What's the stat? We're something like the 14th-biggest team in the country and for us to be middle of the pack in rebounding in the Big Sky is not what we're about… we worked on it this week. There were 28 available offensive rebounds and we got 14 of them. That's a good number."
The Eags look to make it 10 wins in a row next week, on Feb. 1 against the Montana State Bobcats in Bozeman. Tip-off will be at 7 p.m. MT / 6 p.m. PT.
Eagle Notes
- G Ellis Magnuson secured a career-high 7 rebounds.
- Magnuson is now tied with Cody Benzel (2016-19) for 2nd in EWU history with 135 career games played. Bogdan Bliznyuk is first with 138.
- EWU has now won 14 of the last 15 against NAU.
Eastern's next home game is Saturday, February 10 vs. Idaho. It will be Equality and Inclusion Night at Reese Court in Cheney, with a doubleheader as the Eastern women will play at 2 p.m. followed by the men at 4:30 p.m. Tickets for that game and all EWU Athletics events are available at goeags.com/tickets or via the EWU Athletics Ticket Office at 509-359-6059.
ABOUT EASTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY ATHLETICS
Eastern Washington University Athletics sponsors 14 intercollegiate sports, six for men and eight for women, both as learning opportunities for its most athletically talented students and as an enhancement to student and community life. Eastern is affiliated with Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and is a member of the Big Sky Conference, an association of 10 regional schools with comparable enrollments and academic goals.
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