South Dakota hands Eastern Washington its fourth straight loss

VERMILLION, S.D. – Despite a career day from Mason Peatling, the Eastern Washington men’s basketball team fell short again Sunday afternoon.

Peatling scored 19 points for the Eagles, who lost their fourth straight game after watching South Dakota’s Matt Mooney score nine of his 19 points in the final 2:37 of a 75-73 Coyotes’ victory.

Bogdan Bliznyuk tallied 18 points and nine rebounds for Eastern Washington (3-7). Jack Perry made three 3-pointers and scored 13 for the Eagles, who have one game left on an early-season 10-game road trip. EWU wraps up the trip at Wyoming on Tuesday.

Trey Burch-Manning had 19 points and eight rebounds, while reserve Nick Fuller scored 11 with five rebounds for the Coyotes (9-3), who ran their home winning streak against nonconference foes to 12 and improved on their best start since becoming a Division-I school in the 2011-12 season.

South Dakota led 22-11 on a Mooney layup with seven minutes left in the first half, but Peatling scored nine points from there to pull the Eagles within 32-31 at halftime.

Eastern, which never led, tied it at 34 on a 3-pointer by Ty Gibson 25 seconds into the second half. But Burch-Manning and Mooney accounted for 30 of the Coyotes’ final 41 points down the stretch to preserve the win.

EWU hasn’t held a lead during the four-game skid.