ST. DAVIDS, Pa.– After honoring the program's seniors before the game, Eastern University Men's Basketball led for the final 39 minutes in a dominating 86-65 win over the visiting Messiah University Falcons. Zubair Lee led the Eagles with an impressive 32 point, 14 rebound double-double.

The Falcons scored the first basket of the game and also led 4-2. The Eagles then took the lead for good with a 10-to-0 run over the next three minutes. Davin Hernandez scored the first and last baskets of the run with Lee hitting the three hoops in the middle.

The Eastern lead grew throughout the first half and the Eagles held a 43-26 lead at the half. The Eagles built the big lead despite going only 1-of-5 from behind the arc. Lee was 8-of-10 from the foul line and had 20 points and five rebounds at the break. Lee did not play in the first meeting between the two teams in January.

The Falcons (5-20, 4-10) closed the gap with a push early in the second half, and they eventually cut the Eastern lead to 55-50 on a ben Wert 3-pointer with a little more than 12 minutes to play. The two teams then traded five-point runs as Nick Mate made a pair at the line and DaRon Sherman hit from deep only to see the Falcons score from distance and inside to pull back within five.

After the teams again traded short runs, the Eagles pulled away for good with a 13-to-0 run over a four minute stretch. The Eagles made the run happen with 9-of-10 from the foul line. The Eagles shot over 30 foul shots per game out of league but had seen that number slide throughout the conference slate. They took only 17 total foul shots in the game at Grantham. Today, they went 29-of-4. Lee went 14-of-18 for the game.

With the game safe, Head Coach Dan Pruessner pulled each of the seniors off as individuals.

Brian Jackson came out with 94 seconds left. In his final game as an Eagle, Jackson finished with 10 points, eight rebounds, a block and a steal in 26 minutes.

Claiborne came off after a thunderous dunk with 79 seconds left. Claiborne, who started his career at Messiah, scored 358 points this season and reached the 1000 point mark for his career back in December. He played a critical role in last season's MAC Championship run. He finished today with eight points.

Hernandez came out of the game at the 59 second mark. He also scored eight points today. He played in 105 career games and had some of his best moments in the biggest moments. In last year's MAC Championship game, he went 6-of-6 from the floor and had 16 points.

"It was a great final day for our seniors," Pruessner said. "We feel like we have really turned a corner these past couple weeks and are doing a lot of things well. We can think, maybe if we had turned the corner earlier, but we didn't. I still think that this was an important finish for the year for our guys."

"I thought B-Jack gave us great minutes today," Pruessner continued. "Zubair was really good today. He drew 11 fouls and was dominating on the glass."

Though the Eagles (11-14, 4-10) miss the MAC Commonwealth Tournament for the first time since joining the league, there were some big highlights in the year. Along with a win at Hood last Saturday, the Eagles won road games at  Roanoke (21-4) and Johns Hopkins (16-9) and earned a home win over Salisbury (16-9).

Albright and York, the top two seeds in this year's MAC Commonwealth Tournament, both missed the tournament last year.

The Eagles also honored team manager Zach Villa and Brian Justus, a four-year player with Eastern's DV squad.