behind early, Eastern clawed their way back and built a lead of their own and held off a furious charge from the Scarlet Knights.
Junior guard Ryan Tozer (Norwood, PA/ Friends Central) entered the game with 992 points for his career. The long-range shooter, who averaged 21 points per game last week, seemed a sure bet to reach the thousand point plateau this evening, but Tozer and the Eagles started cold and could do nothing as the hosts built an early 13-point lead.
Then Tozer hit a three from the left corner to cut the Scarlet Knight lead to 10. After both teams scored again, Tozer hit a twelve-foot leaner to cut further into the deficit. With just under two minutes remaining in the half, and the Eagles trailing by six, sophomore guard Francis
Bowe (Pheonixville, PA/ Pius) found Tozer deep in the right hand corner where he calmly stroked a three for point number 1,000 and more importantly to pull the Eagles to within three. Bowe then stroked his first three of the game from the left side to send the two teams to the locker room tied at 23.
That tie was the only tie of the game as the Eagles raced out to a quick nine point advantage behind inside baskets from Gus Nadelhoffer(Aurora, IL/ Tigard[OR]), Chris McMonagle (Lancaster, PA/ Catholic), and Brent Voorhees (Grandville, MI/ Tri Unity) and another three from
Tozer. The visitors held onto this comfortable advantage through the middle part of the second half but could not put the hosts away. Up 53-45 with just over five minutes to play, Eastern looked very comfortable in the lead, but Arcadia was up to the challenge.
The Knights drew charges and caused turnovers to cut deep into the lead and had cut the advantage to 4 before freshman guard Lenny DiMaria (Lincroft, NJ/Middletown) stuck a big three with the shot clock running down to
stretch the lead again. Arcadia kept chipping away and were able to cut the lead to 2 with just under 13 seconds left. The Eagles then inbounded the ball to Tozer who was fouled with six seconds on the clock where he calmly stepped up and dropped two free throws to stretch the lead to 60-56.
For the game, Tozer led all Eastern scorers with 13 points. The Eagles also got double figure scoring contributions from Nadelhoffer (12 points, 10 rbs) and DiMaria (10 points, 4 rbs, 4a). The Eagle bench made a huge difference as they outscored their Arcadia counterparts 13-3. Eastern
(10-11, 7-5) host Gwynedd Mercy College in a huge conference game on Saturday.