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MACOMB, Ill. – On a night where the shooting was about as cold as the weather outside, Eastern Illinois managed just enough offense to pick up a 44-41 win over Western Illinois on Saturday night at Western Hall.
With the win, EIU took a one game lead in the long running series now holding a 77-76 series advantage as they became the first road team to win in the series since EIU won at WIU during the 2001-02 season. EIU improves to 5-4 overall and will play next Saturday, Dec. 19, at Belmont. WIU fell to 4-5.
Both teams were ice cold in the opening half as each school had two or more scoreless streaks lasting four and a half minutes of more as the Panthers built a 18-14 lead. EIU had scoreless streaks of 4:30 and 6:15 while WIU had two scoreless stretches of 6:30 and one of 5:05.
Tyler Laser helped the Panthers start to warm up near the end of the half as his 3-pointer at 2:39 gave EIU a 16-11 lead. David Nurse countered with a 3-pointer for the Leathernecks with 50 seconds left to make it a two point game. Laser was fouled as he drove the lane in the final second sinking two free throws to finish with seven first half points.
EIU shot 23 percent going 6-for-26 while WIU was limited to 19 percent at 5-of-26 in the opening 20 minutes. The Leathernecks were 2-of-11 from 3-point range. EIU won the first half battle on the glass by a 25-19 margin. James Hollowell led EIU with six first half boards.
The second half was not much better for either team in shooting from the field as EIU shot 36 percent to finish the game shooting 29 percent. WIU was only at 34 percent in the second half to finish the contest at 27 percent.
The Panthers attempted to pull away several times but could not build more than a six point lead with 27 seconds left as Laser hit a pair of free throws to put EIU up 44-38. Nurse would hit a 3-pointer with 13 seconds left to close the game to three points.
Laser finished with 15 points while Jeremy Granger added 10. Ousmane Cisse had eight rebounds as EIU limited an opponent to 41 points for the first time since Dec. 7, 1987 when they beat Harris-Stowe 120-41.
WIU was led by Nurse with 14 and David Gebru with 11.
