GALLOWAY, N.J. – Eastern University Men's Basketball closed out the game on a 10-to-4 run to earn a hard-fought 77-73 road win over a Stockton University Osprey squad that reached the third round of the the NCAA Tournament in 2022-23. The Eagles made all three of their 3-point attempts in the final 2:34 to erase a late deficit and earn their sixth consecutive win.
Up 69-67, the host Ospreys (6-5) forced an Eastern turnover and had a transition chance to increase their lead. Davin Hernandez sprinted back to contest a lay-up chance and did enough to force a miss. The junior guard was a late arrival at the offensive end after Eljay Morris grabbed the rebound and started the break the other way. Kaeshawn Ward found the trailer, and Hernandez buried his first basket of the game to put the Eagles up for good.with 2:34 on the clock.
After both teams had empty possessions, the Eagles secured another stop and Arkese Claiborne found Jaron Fairweather in nearly the same spot for a four-point lead with 72 seconds to play. Fairweather finished the day with 13 points, but he had missed his first two long-range efforts. Out of a timeout, the Ospreys went inside and scored a tough basket to close the gap to two with 50 seconds to play.
Ward slowed the game down and attacked the rim off a ball screen late in the shot clock. When the Stockton defense collapsed Ward, found Morris in the corner. The senior from London did not hesitate and beat the shot-clock with a 3-pointer that did a full Kawhi Leonard bounce-bounce-bounce-hang-drop routine before falling in for a five-point edge with 20 seconds left. The assist was the eighth of the game for Ward. With that number, he went over 250 for his career and moved into ninth on Eastern's all-time list. He finished with 18 points and five rebounds. Morris scored a season-high nine points.
The Eastern defense secured an another steal and Ward split a pair at the line before Stockton made two free throws with less than a second left for the final margin.
Eastern (7-2) led 35-28 at halftime and saw that lead grow to ten points early in the second half, but the Ospreys whittled away at that lead and finally took a lead on a Martin Anguelov 3-pointers with nine and a half minutes left. Both teams had leads, but neither team led by more than a possession until Fairweather's 3-pointer with 1:12 to play.
At halftime, Ward led all scorers with 14 points. The Ospreys made only 11-of-33 shots and were only 2-of-10 from deep. Zubair Lee started the game with two quick fouls and scored 12 of his 18 after halftime. The Ospreys finished with a 46-39 edge on the glass.
"We trust the guys to hit the open shots," Head Coach Dan Pruessner said after the game. "Davin, Jaron, and Eljay all took the shots with confidence. We are not out there just looking for 3-pointers, but we have to be able to shoot them with confidence."
"Our pace and pressure was good," Pruessner said after the game. "They played us a lot of zone and we were in a good rhythm against it early in the second half, we missed some chances against their man defense and they hit some 3-pointers to get back into it."
Tayvon Gaither finished with a game-high 24, and DJ Campbell had 22 for Stockton.
The Eagles will take on Roanoke and Wabash, a pair of teams that won 20 games last year, at the Catholic University Holiday Classic on Tuesday and Wednesday. Wabash is the two-time defending North Coast Athletic Conference Champion and played in the National Semifinal in 2022.
