In each of the past two seasons, Eastern University Men's Basketball was able to earn home wins over a DeSales team that went on to win the Freedom Conference. This year, the Bulldogs (9-3, 1-2) needed a road win to right the ship in league play. The Eagles rallied from a nine-point second half deficit to briefly take a lead, but the Bulldogs escaped St. Davids with a 65-62 win.

The visitors relied on senior captain Brian Hunter in to build a five point halftime lead. Hunter scored 15 points before the break on 6-10 from the field. Martin Soaries led the Eagles with 8 points at the intermission.

"They controlled tempo at the beginning of each half, " Eastern Head Coach Matt Nadelhoffer said after the game, "and that allowed them to go on some big runs that put us behind."

Brett Moyer scored DeSales' first 10 points of the second half, and though the Eagles were able to respond the sophomore forward forced the Eastern team to change their defense for the remainder of the game. Moyer finished the game with 24 points and 17 rebounds in 30 minutes of action.

Eastern was able to whittle into the nine point deficit and eventually grabbed a47-45 lead on a pair of Martin Soaries free throws with nine minutes left. Moyer made three straight free throws and Brian Kerwin hit a pair of jumpers in an 8-0 run to bump the DeSales lead back to six. 

Dan Miller scored seven of his 15 points late, but the Eagles' comeback fell short as the Bulldogs made enough free throws to hold a three point edge with less than a second left and a desperation heave from mid-court went wide.

"DeSales has proved why they have won the league the past two years." Nadelhoffer said," They are the team to beat. For them, to be in a situation being 0-2, to come into this game, on the road and to win, it says something impressive about their program. We have four goals every game and we didn't achieve three of them. We lost focus at key moments"

Miller and Alex Nelson finished the game with 15 points each, and Collin Whipple scored 11. Hunter scored 19 and added a game-high seven assists for the guests.

"We go back to zero no matter what, win or lose, " Nadelhoffer continued,"Tomorrow is a new day, a day off. We come back on Monday, focusing on our attitude, effort and character."

The Eagles (8-3, 2-1 Freedom) return to action on Wednesday night with another home game against Wilkes University. As part of Eastern's Season of Impact, the gate from the game will be donated to Teen Challenge, which is an organization committed to helping teens recover from drug and alcohol addiction. The men's game is the second game of a doubleheader with the women.

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