Parting players score 53 of Eastern's 79 points in finale
By PAUL DELANEY
Staff Reporter
Last Saturday's 79-71 win over Idaho State was a fitting encore for Eastern Washington University's seniors on the men's basketball team.
The five went out in a productive way, scoring 53 of their team's points as Eastern ended their season 9-21 overall and 5-11 in the Big Sky Conference play. The win ended a three game losing streak and helped wash some of the sour taste that lingered following Friday's 85-57 ugly loss to regular season champ, Weber State.
Gary Gibson and Mark Dunn each scored 14 for the Eagles, while Cheney native Matt Brunell had nine. Four-year letter winner Brandon Moore and Benny Valentine each added eight. The five started the game as a unit and played most of the first half.
“We were trying to reward them for what they have done for Eastern Washington University, and we wanted to make sure we won the game,” head coach Kirk Earlywine said. “The seniors did the job, and I'm glad that they did.”
Gibson had one especially memorable string of minutes in the second half as the Windsor, Ontario native had seven of his points in a three-minute span and helped Eastern put additional distance between themselves and the Bengals (4-12 BSC, 7-22).
After ISU had trimmed the Eagles' lead to six with 30.9 seconds to go, Valentine and Dunn would seal it with free throws and Gibson's acrobatic one-handed floating lay up would finish it.
Eastern finished the game making 46.4 percent of its shots from the field. One night earlier in the loss to Weber State, Eastern made just 28.8 percent of its shots from the field.
In the Weber State game, the Wildcats jumped out to an early 20-5 lead that was never challenged. “I thought we would be ready to battle them tonight, but we weren't,” Earlywine said. That may have been especially surprising to the coach considering the Eagles still clung to microscopic hopes of qualifying for the conference tournament.
Freshman Glen Dean led the Eagles with 17 points as he made 9-of-10 free throws. Fellow freshman Jeffrey Forbes chipped in 10 points. Ironically, the five seniors who did so much Saturday, combined for just 18 points Friday, but to their credit did so in limited playing time.
Weber State ended the first half with a 13-4 run to take a 51-24 lead at intermission and their biggest lead was 34 points with 3:52 to play.
Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.
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