St. Davids, PA (January 26, 2005) The Eastern Men's Basketball team (6-11, 4-4 PAC) defeated the Pacers of Marywood University tonight at the Athletic Center at Eastern University. The Eagles are now .500 in conference play and will face the Neumann College Knights on Saturday at 3pm.
The first half started out strong for the Eagles as they jumped out to a 12-4 lead on the inside game of junior Chris McMonagle (Lancaster, PA/Lancaster Catholic) and freshman Shawn Collier (Freehold, NJ/Freehold Boro). McMonagle hit on his first two field goals and Collier neeted six of the first 12 points. The Pacers answered with a 12-4 charge of their own to tie the game at 16-16 at the 9:38 mark. Another 13-3 run by the Eagles over the next six minutes gave them their biggest lead of the half at 10. In the final three minutes, however, the Eagles managed just one field goal to the Pacers five, and the half time score stood at 31-29 for the Eagles.
The second half proved to be more of the same as both teams traded runs. The Eagles built up a ten-point lead in the middle of the second half, but the Pacers again made a late run to come to within two at 47-49. The two teams traded possessions with no points scored until Eastern deposited their final four points of the game to win 53-49.
Eastern spread around the offensive effort tonight with 12 guys scoring for the Eagles. Leading the way was Collier who finished with eleven and McMonagle who collected ten. Chris also added seven rebounds. Top rebounder for the Eagles was sophomore guard Lenny Dimaria (Lincroft, NJ/Middletown South) who picked up nine defensive boards.
Two Pacers led Marywood in scoring, Ryan Rogan and Joe Buczko. Each netted 16 points, while Buczko pulled down a team-high eight rebounds. The Pacers fall to 5-11 and 3-5 in the PAC.
Eastern will host Neumann College on Saturday at 3pm, while the Pacers travel to Wesley College on Saturday for a 4:00pm game.