ninth win in the league and take a big step towards securing a playoff berth. The Eastern University Eagles jumped out of the gates to a 32-4 lead and placed all five starters in double figures in an 82-68 road win.

The early Eastern run bordered on the surreal as Ty Coleman scored off a pass from Mike Johnson. Johnson converted two straight inside buckets, and then the threes started to fall. The Eagles hit five shots in a row with four coming from behind the arc. The Knights meanwhile, struggled to find inside shots and were unable to connect on the contested three-pointers at the other end. The three Eastern bigs all converted three pointers as Coleman drained a pair and Johnson and Matt Malloy also drained open looks from the perimeter.

Lenny DiMaria then took his turn scoring, as the senior guard scored ten of twelve points for the Eagles as they pushed the lead to 32-4. Michael Hitchens helped stem the tide a bit for the Knights with two straight baskets, but the Eagles were able to use a pair of three pointers from David Volpe to extend their lead to the biggest of the first half at 43-14.

The Knights began to find the range from distance and forced the Eagles into several turnovers as they put together a 14-2 run before Mike Johnson ended the half with a nice finish on a lob pass from Volpe.

The Eagles went into the half up 47-28. Johnson, DiMaria, and Coleman went to the locker room with double figure scoring and the Eagles connected on 7 of 11 from behind the arc. Also of importance, the Eagles held the Knights to 35% shooting and a 4 of 14 performance from behind the arc in the opening frame.

After the Knights scored the opening basket of the second half on an inside basket from Leon Dales, the Eagles responded with an 18-5 run to take a 67-37 lead. Malloy hit for ten points in the run, and Volpe hit a pair of threes to put the game into what seemed to be safe zone.

The Knights made a run behind the outside shooting of DJ Fritz, who hit for twenty points in the last fifteen minutes of the game, and Michael Hitchens, who scored nine of his 20 points in the closing ten minutes. The Knights cut the deficit to 14 with four minutes to play, but Volpe again stroked a three, his fifth in six attempts, to ice the game for the Eagles.

The Eagles placed all five starters in double figures and shot 59% in the second half. Volpe led the way for the Eagles with 21. DiMaria added 18 and six rebounds, Malloy scored 16 points on just nine field goal attempts and picked up a season high eight assists to go with six rebounds. Coleman turned in another efficient scoring performance as he scored 14 on just seven shots. Mike Johnson scored all his points in the decisive first half, but also picked up five assists three blocks and a pair of steals in an all around game.

Coach Nadelhoffer said of the game, “They (Neumann) are a scary team to play against, because they keep coming at you, but I thought our team did a great job of coming ready to play today. They could not have executed our game plan any better than they did in the opening ten minutes of the game. We know that we can shoot a high percentage when we take care of the ball, and we felt that we could do some things that would make things difficult for them. The guys knew what was on the line, and they made things happen.”

The Eagles, now 9-6 in the PAC, will play non-conference home games on Saturday and Monday before returning to PAC play in one week at Cabrini.