ST. DAVIDS, Pa.– Eastern University Men's Basketball held off a late charge from the visiting Lebanon Valley College Dutchmen to earn a 76-72 MAC Commonwealth win on senior day. The Eagles honored six seniors before the game, but juniors Sam Gallardo and Jaron Fairweather led the squad in the scorebooks. Gallardo hit on 5-of-9 from behind the arc to score a game-high 22. Fairweather had 19 points and six rebounds.

The Eagles led by 11 at halftime and stretched the lead to 60-41 on a Gallardo 3-pointer less than four minutes into the second half. The Dutchmen, however, did not go quietly. The visitors cut the Eastern lead to 69-62 before Fairweather hit stretched the edge back to ten points with his second 3-pointer of the game.

Lebanon Valley then embarked on a grinding 8-to-0 run to pull within a basket with 2:42 on the clock. The Eagles went nearly five and a half minutes without a point, but Fairweather again came through at the end of a long possession. Kaeshawn Ward drove into the heart of the LVC zone and flipped a pass to the perimeter. Fairweather did not hesitate and his third 3-pointer of the contest found the bottom of the net for a five-point edge.

The Dutchmen had the ball down three late, but the Eastern perimeter defense dug in. Ward blocked a desperation attempt with under four seconds to play, and Draig Cooley made the first of two free throws to secure the win.

Though the Eagles scored only nine points over the final ten minutes, the defense made plays to hold off the Dutchmen. Despite being in foul trouble throughout, William Blet finished the game with four blocks and eight rebounds. Three of those blocks and several key rebounds came in the second half.

After two games guarding point guards (Albright's Sidney Brown and Hood's Mason Wang), Fairweather had the task of keeping Collin Jones, the 2021 MAC Commonwealth Player of the Year, off the board. Jones, a powerful interior player averaging over 22 points per game coming in, scored 13 points.

Gallardo came into tonight's game shooting over 50 percent from behind the arc but was not listed in the MAC rankings because he had only attempted 50 shots in 18 games. With his 5-of-9 performance tonight, he is still shooting over 50 percent and now leads the league in that category.

Before the contest, the program honored seniors McKay Cobb and Joe Ortiz who have not played this year and Blet, Cooley, Terron Bacon , and Joshua Grant. The group has been part of the most successful era of basketball in Division III history. Eastern has won 15 or more games in each full season since Blet joined the program in 2017.

Tonight's win was the 18th of the year for the Eagles and is a new high-water mark for the program in its Division III history. The Eagles will wrap up the regular season at York on Saturday. They can secure the MAC Commonwealth Regular-Season Championship and the top seed in next weeks league tournament.

"I told them before the game if you think this game is about the seniors you are wrong," Head Coach Dan Pruessner said after the game. "I said If you pass up shots for the seniors you are being disrespectful to them. We had to play the game to win and to honor our seniors in that way. It is a great group, and I am very pleased to be able to recognize what they are doing. I think it is important to talk in the present tense. They are a huge part of this and we want to keep it going."

Cooley had 11 points and sophomore forward Kevin Reeves finished with 10 points and four rebounds in nine minutes of action off the bench.

The Eagles will be home against a lower-seeded team on Wednesday. Game times will be posted and the opponent is to be determined. The Hood College Blazers returned to their winning ways and kept pace with a win at Messiah this evening.