Eastern sweeps Montana, Montana State

There was a lot to like following Eastern Washington's come-from-behind Big Sky Conference men's basketball 77-72 victory over Montana State last Saturday afternoon at Reese Court.

Coupled with the Eagles' 69-62 win over Montana Thursday night that stopped a five-game losing streak, Eastern evened their conference record at 2-2 (7-8 overall), and may have taken a big step early-on in a quest to return to the postseason.

"How about beating Montana and Montana State?" Eagles' head coach Jim Hayford said in a post game radio interview. "I've never said that in two-and-a-half years at Eastern; it rolls off the tongue real nice."

With Thomas Reuter making a tie-breaking lay up with just 18 seconds to play, then a key free throw, followed by Drew Brandon's clinching foul shots, the Eagles saddled the Bobcats (3-1, 8-7) with their first Big Sky loss.

Eastern now hits the road with a much-needed shot of confidence as they meet Northern Arizona (3-1, 6-9) tonight, (Thursday, Jan. 16) in Flagstaff and Sacramento State (1-3, 5-8) Saturday night.

"What a tremendous win," Hayford said. "This win would not have happened a year ago or maybe even two months ago. Our players are growing up, and they understand it takes determination to win games."

Sophomore Tyler Harvey led the Eagles with 19 points, Parker Kelly added 18 with Brandon having a double-double – almost a triple-double – with 15 points, 10 assists and nine rebounds. Harvey's totals included five 3-pointers while Kelly finished with four 3s, as Eastern finished 12-of-23 as a team.

Jois had his fifth double-double of the season adding 10 rebounds to his totals but perhaps more importantly, two blocked shots in the last 1 minute, 25 seconds of the game.

Eastern led 37-21 in the first half but MSU outscored the Eagles 40-13 and took a 61-50 lead with 12:53 to play. With Kelly starting things off with a pair of free throws, Eastern scored 27 of the final 38 points for the victory.

While on Saturday Kelly's contribution to the win was on the scoreboard, Thursday against the Griz it was his defensive effort. He limited Kareen Jamar to just 10 points while scoring just three points himself. Jamar entered the game ranked third in the Big Sky at 19.3 points per game

The offensive heavy lifting Thursday came again from Harvey who tossed in a game-high 25 points, plus a huge night from junior Martin Seiferth with 21 points, 10 coming on monster jams. Seiferth also recorded a double-double adding 10 rebounds.

Early in the game Harvey was just 3-of-13 from the field, but made seven of his last eight shots. Jois was the third Eagle in double-figures with 14.

"I am really proud of Martin," Hayford said. "He has been struggling, but he kept bringing great effort." Seiferth made 10-of-13 shots from the field and added four blocked shots, two on one Montana possession.

Along with ending the Eagles' overall losing streak, the win also snapped EWU's five-game losing skid against the Grizzlies in front of 2,043 fans.

"It was a textbook example of how you defend your home court, except our foul shooting wasn't good enough," Hayford said. The Eagles were just 11-of-22 from the stripe.

The Eagles opened the game on a roll leading 7-0, Montana cut it to 9-7 before Eastern scored the next six on a pair of Harvey 3s. Eastern led the game for all of about a minute when Andy Martin canned a jumper 1:30 into the second half giving the Griz a 33-32 edge.

Eastern held Montana to just six points in the final 4:26.

Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.