Eastern men fall at Sac State; end losing streak at PSU

The Hornet's Nest lived up to its name last Saturday for the Eastern Washington University men's basketball team.

The cracker-box gymnasium, home of the Sacramento State Hornets, was the site of the Eagles' first Big Sky Conference loss this season, 90-77. Eastern (4-1 Big Sky, 13-5 overall), however, earned a split in their first conference road trip of the season after taking a 92-85 win at Portland State (3-3, 9-7).

The loss ended EWU's five-game winning streak and created a logjam at the top of the league standings with four teams, including Northern Colorado and Montana having just one loss.

Sacramento State (5-1, 11-6) broke a 41-41 tie at half, making 10 of their first 12 shots in the second half to open an 11-point lead. Although the Eagles pulled within four on a number of occasions after that, the Hornets made a blistering 73 percent of its shots in the second half and 63 percent for the game.

 "You know you are going to take everybody's best shot," EWU head coach Jim Hayford said. "Yes, they shot the ball well, but we should have given them more resistance."

Eastern played the game without their second-leading scorer, Venky Jois, who suffered an ankle sprain at Portland State. But true freshman Bogdan Bliznyuk came off the bench to score a season-high 19 points and 10 rebounds for the first double-double in his Eastern career. Junior Tyler Harvey led Eastern with 21 points.

Sacramento State's leading scorers Dylan Garrity (seven points) and Mikh McKinney (14) were held to a collective 21 points, but the rest of the team was 23 of 31 for 74 percent. Cody Demps led the Hornets with 22.

Despite playing much of the first half without Jois, the Eagles led start to finish and notched their first win at the Stott Center since the Rodney Stuckey era with an 88-70 victory Jan. 13, 2007. The win ended a seven game losing streak at PSU.

Harvey, after scoring just five points in the first half, exploded for 18 points in the second and led four Eagles in double figures with 23 points. Bliznyuk again helped make up for the absence of Jois with with a season-high 18 points.

Senior Parker Kelly had six 3-pointers and a season-high 19 points. Ognjen "O.G." Miljkovic also helped fill in for the absence of Jois and added 14 points.

"I'm really proud of our team-we got production up and down the lineup," Hayford said. "We received some great minutes again from Bogdan and O.G. had a tremendous rebounding night.

Eastern returns home for three-straight games, Northern Colorado, Jan. 22 and North Dakota, Jan. 24 in the lone meetings against those teams this season. Eastern closes the home stand with a rematch versus Idaho on Jan. 31.

With 12 teams and a limited time in which to conclude league play, each Big Sky team will face two conference teams this season in either a home or road game. The Eagles travel to Southern Utah and Northern Arizona later in the season.

Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].