Eastern men maintain lead

CHENEY — The Eastern Washington men’s basketball team let a late lead slip away Feb. 22 in a 78-71 loss at Northern Arizona.

But they made sure that didn’t happen two days later in Greeley against Northern Colorado and following an 85-76 Big Sky Conference victory were able to maintain their two-game lead atop the standings with three games to play.

Cedric Coward poured in a career-high 30 points and Ethan Price scored the 1,000th in his career as part of a double-double snapping a two-game skid for Eastern (12-3 BSC, 18-10 overall) which is at home Feb. 29 at 6 p.m. vs. Montana (10-5, 19-9) and Montana State (7-8, 12-16) at 2.

In a battle to keep their lead in conference standings, which had dwindled to a single game following the NAU loss, the Eagles played a see-saw second half. They led UNC (10-5, 17-11) by as many as seven — twice — and had that margin shrink to one at 71-70 with 4 minutes, 46 seconds to play.

A 7-2 run, powered by Coward’s six straight points gave Eastern a 78-72 lead with 1:45 remaining with his dunk with 22 seconds to go seeing the deal. Jake Kyman had 14 and Price 12.

The Eagles had a seven-point lead on baskets from Kyman and Price with three minutes to go in Flagstaff where the host Lumberjacks (6-9, 13-16) finished with the game’s final 14 points.

They had a 12-0 margin in second-chance points. “The second chance points killed us,” head coach David Riley said.

It was NAU who upset Eastern 81-80 in the Big Sky tournament last spring in Boise. NAU’s last win regular season win over EWU was in March of 2017. The Eagles had won 14 of the last 15 head-to-head matchups entering Thursday.

Five Eagles scored in double figures, led by Casey Jones with 17 and followed by Coward and Price with 12 each and Dane Erikstrup and LeJuan Watts adding 11.