News Release

— ST. DAVIDS, PA - Going into today’s match up with the Villa Julie Mustangs, the Eastern Eagles had won five of their last eight games and were gaining confidence for the critical home stretch in the competitive PAC. After falling behind early, the Eagles picked things up at the defensive end and rolled to a convincing 77-58 win. The Mustangs hit three three-pointers in the first three minutes to jump to a quick 9-3 lead and were able to stretch that lead on a fourth three-pointer to 25-15 with eight and a half minutes remaining in the half. That would be the last three-point basket the Eagles gave up as they tightened the defense and began to chip away the lead behind baskets from Chris McMonagle (Lancaster, PA/ Catholic), Ryan Tozer (Norwood, PA/ Friends Central), and a pair by Brent Voorhees (Grandville, MI/ Tri Unity). The Eagles took their first lead at 28-27 on a nice baseline jumper from sophomore forward Josh Hook (Wilkes Barre, PA/ Bishop O’Reilly). Tozer and Hook scored the last five points of the half to take a seven point advantage. The visitors chipped away at the halftime advantage and were able to draw level at 42 before the Eagles put together a convincing 16-0 run that lasted almost exactly 10 minutes on the clock. In that stretch six different Eastern players scored and four different Eastern players registered assists. Despite giving up 16 points in the last 4 minutes, Eastern was able to stretch the final margin to nineteen behind solid execution from its bench.
Tozer led all scorers with 25 on 9 of 15 shooting. Hook added 12 points, and Voorhees contributed eleven points and five boards off the bench. For the game, the Eagles bench outscored the Mustang bench 25-5 and outrebounded them 17-1. Bryan Nadelhoffer (Aurora, IL/ Tigard [OR]) picked up 6 boards, a key assist, and a huge blocked shot in his fifteen minutes on the floor. The Eagles hit the road on Monday night to take on Arcadia University in a PAC contest with playoff implications for both teams.