ST. DAVIDS, Pa.– Jaron Fairweather scored a career-best 39 points as Eastern University Men's Basketball earned a 93-84 Senior-Day win over the visiting Hood College Blazers. The Eagles closed out the first half on a 22-to-7 run and held off a late Hood Charge to secure the win and move into sole possession of the third spot in the MAC Commonwealth standings. Fairweather made eight 3-pointers, grabbed 10 rebounds, and dished out five assists. 

While the program honored its five seniors before the start of the game, Fairweather, who had his day last year, was not one of them. Kaeshawn Ward, Eljay Morris, Kevin Reeves, Arkese Claiborne, and Jayden Smith were met by their families and honored at mid-court. 

Ward, playing in his 86th career game, came into the contest just three points shy of the 1,000 point mark for his career. The senior point guard did not leave his fans waiting long as he pulled a 25-footer on the second possession of the game to secure the career milestone. He is the first Eastern player in the NCAA era to score over 1000 points and dish out over 300 assists. He finished the day with nine points and eight assists. He is currently third on Eastern's career list for assists. 

After the celebratory time-out, the Blazers scored at the other end for the second and final lead of the game. Hood (17-5, 9-3) tied the game at 7-7 on a Ryan Hollwedel 3-pointer, but the Eagles had an answer, and took the lead for good when Eljay Morris dropped in answer from deep. Morris, who finished the game with nine points and eight rebounds, now has five made 3-pointers on the year. 

Fairweather scored his first basket five minutes into the game, and the Eastern lead grew to nine as Reeves put a three-pointer and an elbow jumper on either side of a Zubair Lee free throw. Hood had an answer and the game stabilized as the two teams traded points with Eastern leading by five to seven points. 

Over the final six minutes of the half, the Eagles put together what would prove to be the decisive run of the game. Nick Mate hit a 3-pointer, and he and Morris each hit a pair of free throws for a ten point lead with four minutes to play. Hood's Justin Gielen hit a tough pull-up jumper to close the gap to 39-31 with three minutes left.

Fairweather then kicked things into gear. He scored 13 points on four shots over the final 2:45. He made three 3-pointers, a driving lay-up and a pair of free throws to put the Eagles up 54-34 at the break. Davin Hernandez scored the only other Eastern basket in the 15-3 run. Hood's Garrison Linton made his first basket of the game, a long 3-pointer, for the only visitor points in the run. Linton finished the day with 14 points, 10 rebounds and 12 assists.  

"I hated being up by 20 at half," Head Coach Dan Pruessner said after the game. "We were definitely happy to be up, but that huge lead kind of puts you in a situation where you can either lose focus or become complacent. It was an incredible close to the half, but every single coach in our huddle knew it was not over."

The Eagles made 9-of-17 from deep against Hood's zone defense and shot 54.3 percent overall. Fairweather had five 3-pointers and 21 points at halftime. 

Hood scored the first two baskets of the second half, but the Eagles had another big run to stretch their lead to 26 with 14 minutes left. Fairweather made two more 3-pointers in the 13-to-3 run. Zubair Lee had four points and Kevin Reeves had an impressive three-point play on a tip-in.

Hood did not go away. The Blazers came into the game tied atop the MAC Commonwealth and holding impressive wins over Widener, Catholic, and California Lutheran. All three programs are currently 20-3 and have numbers beside their names in the national polls. 

"It was a little bit us with some silly mistakes and a lot of them," Pruessner said. "You think you have the zone solved and then they fix it and if you don't adjust your going ot wind up not getting good shots or turning it over. They got us in the bonus seven minutes in and then we were a little less aggressive defensively. In a game with tight margins, that makes a difference."

Over the next ten minutes, the Blazers took advantage of seven Eastern turnovers and pieced together a 34-to-13 run. They made 11-of-15 from the line and three 3-pointers on the way to closing the Eastern lead to 80-75 with 3:40 left in the game. 

Fairweather again had an answer. Ward drove into the lane and kicked the ball back out toward the Eastern bench. Fairweather did not hesitate. and connected from 24 feet for his eighth long-range effort of the day. His eighth 3-pointers are the most by an Eastern player since Adam Shute made nine against Rivier in December of 2000. Kevin Standford has the all-time record with 10 in a game. Fairweather, however, was not thinking about history. 

"I just knew we had to win the game," he said. "All that scoring, hey [that's] great, but if we did not win, that would have been terrible."

After Hood got a clutch jumper from Justin Gielen, the eagles would need to connect from the foul line to secure the win. Lee made a pair and Ward made 3-of-4 around a trio of Eastern stops and the led pushed back to 11. Over the course of the game, the Eagles made 21-of-26 from the line. 

As the game was winding down, Fairweather was fouled breaking the Hood press with less than 10 seconds left. The crowd, seeing their guy at 38, got on its feet. Fairweather had missed only four free throws in league games this year, but his first effort rimmed out and he settled for 39. That is the most by an Eastern player since Graham Thorpe put in 47 against the University of the Sciences on Valentines day in 2001. Shaquan Turk scored 37 in back-to-back games against Manhattanville and Misericordia in February of 2015. Turk did not make a 3-pointer in that stretch. 

Nick Mate and Zubair Lee each finished with 10 points to join Fairweather in double figures. 

The win moves the Eagles in front of Alvernia with two games left in the in the MAC Commonwealth regular season. Eastern can only move ahead of Hood in the standings with wins at LAbright and Messiah and Hood losses to York and Alvernia. 

Eastern is at Albright on Tuesday.