St. Davids, PA (February 7, 2005) - The Eastern University Eagles (8-14, 6-7 PAC) defeated their cross-street rivals Cabrini College (11-10, 7-6 PAC) on Monday night at the Athletic Center, 47-44, to move one step further to solidifying their PAC post-season birth. Eastern is now just one game behind the Cavaliers with three conference games remaining.
Despite a cold first half shooting effort by the Eagles, the visiting Cavaliers only led by eight points at the intermission, 23-15. Eastern shot 27% from the floor and dropped just five field goals including two lay ups by sophomore Kenny Neal (Prospect Park, PA/Interboro), while Cabrini managed an impressive 64% shooting, but hit only nine field goals.
The second half started out just the way the Eagles wanted as they scored the first seven points on field goals by Neal, Chris McMonagle (Lancaster, PA/Lancaster Catholic) and a three by freshman David Volpe (Harleysville, PA/Christopher Dock) to cut the deficit to one. After a field goal by Cabrini's Jim Good put the Cavs up by three, Eastern's Lenny Dimaria (Lincroft, NJ/Middletown South) hit back-to-back triples to give the Eagles the 3-point lead six minutes into the second. From that point on there were five ties and six lead changes until the Eagles held four on a Volpe three pointer with 1:39 to play. The Eagles held the Cavs to just one field goal in the last 3 minutes of play, a Reams layup with :06 on the clock. Two cluth free throws by Dimaria with :11 sealed the five-point lead, 47-42, and the Eagles hold on to capture a big conference win.
The Eagles travel to Marywood and Gwynedd-Mercy this week on Wednesday and Saturday and then host their final PAC game on Monday, February 14th versus Arcadia University. Cabrin travel to College Misericordia then hosts their final two game with Marywood and Neumann.