ST. DAVIDS--Senior guard Martin Soaries scored his 1,000 career point in Wednesday night's 84-62 win over the FDU-Florham Devils.
Soaries entered the game with 994 points in his four seasons at Eastern. Soaries scored six straight points in the first half, reaching 1,000 points with 13:53 left in the first half. After inbounding the ball from beneath Eastern's basket to Mike Donatoni, Soaries hooked around a nice down screen from Alex Nelson, received the ball back from Donatoni, and shot a leaning jumper from the middle of the lane. The ball banked in, making Soaries the 27th player in Eastern Men's Basketball history to reach 1,000 points.
In addition to making his way into this illustrious club, Soaries had his best performance of the season, finishing with a game-high 21 points and 10 rebounds. "At points in the game he was really unstoppable," said Eastern head coach Nate Stewart. "For him to get a double-double on the night he scored his 1,000 point was almost a perfect script."
Stewart was obviously proud of Soaries' accomplishment. "Martin came out with an aggressive mindset; he attacked the basket and was able to get his sixth point pretty quickly in the game," Stewart said. "He's been a joy to coach and a leader in our program. I'm just happy he was able to reach this milestone. He gave all the credit to his teammates after the game for passing him the ball."
With the record-breaking taken care of early on, the Eagles surged to a 19-point halftime lead. Forward Alex Nelson notched 16 of his 17 points in the first half.
The second half turned into a marathon after both teams developed foul trouble early. After only four minutes and seven seconds had elapsed, both teams were in the bonus, each committing seven fouls. From there, the number of fouls committed reached absurd heights: 52 fouls were called in the game, 24 on FDU and 28 on Eastern. Amazingly, only one player fouled out--FDU's Willy Green.
The continuous game-stoppage affected the play of both teams. Stewart was glad to have five seniors who could handle uncommon situations. "It helps to have seniors that have been there before," he said. "While the second half wasn't pretty for the fans to watch, we were able to figure it out and get out of here with a win."
The Eagles received 30 free throw opportunities and sank 24 of them for an even 80 percent mark from the line. The Devils shot 22-for-34 (64.7 percent) from the line. "Our goal is to shoot over 70 percent as a team, being able to shoot 80 percent was great for us," Stewart said. "The free points were readily available to us tonight and we were able to take advantage of that."
Eastern travels to DeSales Saturday for a 4 pm game. The Eagles are 4-3 in road games; two of those losses were to league opponents. "It's very difficult in this league to win on the road," Stewart said.
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