Eastern Washington has comeback bid fall short in 82-78 loss to Cal Poly

Two minutes into the second half, after the Cal Poly Mustangs made three consecutive baskets, Dan Monson sent five new players to the scorer’s table.

Eastern Washington had once led by nine points, but that was early in the first half. Since then, the Mustangs had done more to control the pace and shot selection, and in so doing had taken a nine-point lead.

The fresh five only temporarily slowed the Mustangs, who eventually built up a 22-point lead. But something clicked in the final eight minutes – and Eastern Washington nearly finished the comeback.

In the end, the Eagles’ men’s basketball team came up one basket short, and it lost 82-78 on Sunday afternoon at Reese Court in front of an announced crowd of 1,630.

“We had lapses today where we didn’t have any emotion and we didn’t play with each other or for each other,” said Monson, EWU’s first-year head coach. “We got frustrated and went off on our own, and that doesn’t work.”

Indeed, Eastern (1-3) committed 19 turnovers in the game, but 13 of them came during a 16-minute span across halftime during which the Eagles saw a one-point deficit balloon to a 10-point gap between themselves and Cal Poly (3-2).

Over the next eight minutes the Eagles committed only one more turnover, but they also made just 2 of 12 shots. The Mustangs, meanwhile, made 8 of 15 and jumped ahead 69-47.

“Basketball’s a game of runs. We started off well and then just made mistakes,” redshirt junior Nic McClain said. “We’ve got to stay together. I think that’s the biggest thing. Just staying together when things go bad.”

From there, the Eagles did. They closed the game on a 31-13 run, making 11 of their final 18 shots while forcing the Mustangs into seven of their 22 turnovers during the final eight minutes.

With 3:25 to go, sophomore Mason Williams hit a 3 to cut Cal Poly’s lead to 76-66, and senior Andrew Cook followed with a reverse layup to get the lead back to single digits.

Cook (on two free throws) and Williams (on another 3-pointer) scored the next five points to get the lead down to three with 1:04 left.

The Eagles’ defense then forced a shot-clock violation, and McClain drove the lane for two with 37 seconds left to make the score 76-75.

Cal Poly to that point was just 1 for 7 at the free-throw line but made its final four attempts. Eastern never got closer than two points again.

“We’ve got to keep building, getting better, and I was proud that they kept fighting,” Monson said. “As long as they keep fighting, we can help them get better.”

McClain finished 10 of 12 from the field and 7 of 10 at the line to finish with a career-high 28 points. Cook and Williams each added 12 points, and sophomore Vice Zanki had nine off the bench, all on 3s.

The Mustangs, under first-year head coach Mike DeGeorge, are already one win shy of their total last year when they finished 4-28 overall and 0-20 in the Big West.

Eastern Washington plays again Thursday against Washington State (3-1) at Spokane Arena. Tip is scheduled for 6:30 p.m.

EWU women fall to Portland

Portland senior Maisie Burnham scored 22 points to lead the Pilots past the Eastern Washington women’s basketball team 74-62 at Reese Court in the first half of Sunday’s doubleheader in Cheney.

Burham, a graduate of Liberty High School in Spangle who spent one year at Eastern before transferring to Portland, made 5 of 14 shots from the field and 12 of 16 free throws. She also grabbed a game-high 11 rebounds.

Eastern (1-3) trailed by one heading into the fourth quarter but made just 4 of 19 shots in the final 10 minutes, including 0 of 9 3-point attempts.

“Ultimately it came down to us not hitting shots in the fourth quarter,” EWU head coach Joddie Gleason said. “I feel like we hung with them, we broke their press really well, we had some open looks and we just didn’t hit them at the times that we really needed to. But I love the way our team battled.”

Senior Peyton Howard led the Eagles with 16 points and made 6 of 10 shots. Nine other EWU players scored, led by Alexis’ Pettis, who had nine.

The Pilots (3-0) finished 28 of 36 on free throws.

Eastern plays Saint Mary’s (2-2) as part of the Bank of Hawaii Classic on Friday in Honolulu.