La Grande, Ore. The Eastern Oregon men's basketball team fell to Southern Oregon in tonight's Cascade Conference semifinal game at Quinn Coliseum 71-89.
Tony Eackles Jr. led the Mountaineers (28-4, 15-3 CCC) with 17 points and 5 rebounds.
Trent Roos finished the night with 12 points and 4 rebounds.
Southern (24-8, 13-5 CCC) was led by David Sturner who recorded a double-double with 20 points and 11 assists. Eric Thompson also recorded a double-double with 18 points and 10 rebounds while teammate Jeff Bush added 20 points and 8 assists.
Southern Oregon jumped out to an early ,16-6, lead to take control of the game. The Raiders continued to extend their lead by as much as 14, 36-22 with 5:40 left in the half. EOU battled back to cut the SOU led to as little as 5, 31-36 but would head into halftime down, 34-42.
EOU shot just 12-of-37 (32%) from the field in the first half and 4-of-14 (28%) from behind the arc. SOU shot 14-of-29 (48%) from the field and 6-of-15 (40%) from behind the arc.
In the second half the Mountaineers continued to struggle shooting the ball, going 3-of-15 (20%) from behind the arc while the Raiders shot 44% from the three in the second half and 10-of-24 (42%) for the game. Eastern finally got their offense going cutting the Raider lead to only 6 with 10:11 to play but that is as close as the Mountaineers would come.
With two minutes left Eastern would give the Raiders one last scare cutting the deficit to 8 after a lay-up by JD Esters but Southern responded with a quick 6 point run extending their lead back to 14, 84-70. Southern would eventually lead by as many as 19 in the second half and go on to win the game 89-71.
The Mountaineers will be in action again on March 6
th when they travel to Point Lookout, Mo. to compete in the National Championship.