Saturday, November 15, 2014
SAN ANGELO, TEXAS – Five players scored at least 11 points for the Eastern New Mexico men's basketball team Saturday night in a 102-94 victory over Oklahoma Panhandle State in Junell Center as part of the ASU Ed Messbargar Tip-Off Classic. Junior guard
Demetrius Balark scored a team-high 22 points with five three-pointers while also grabbing five rebounds.
The Greyhounds improve to 2-0 on the season for the first time since the 2010-11 season while the Aggies drop to 0-2.
After OPSU made two free throws to tie the game 2-2, ENMU went on a 15-2 run over a 3:15 minute span take a 17-4 lead. Balark scored six points while junior forward
Lawrence Domingo added four during the run.
Nine straight points from the Aggies cut the Greyhounds lead to four with just over seven minutes into the contest. After a jumper by Domingo and free throw from junior guard
John Gilliam pushed Eastern's advantage to 20-13, OPSU went on a 9-2 burst to knot the game at 22 with 9:57 until halftime.
Eight straight points by the Greyhounds in a 42 second span that was capped off by a three-pointer from Balark put them in the lead for good.
An old-fashion three-point play with 2:41 remaining in the first half gave ENMU gave them a 52-35 lead, their largest in the period. The Aggies scored the final five points of the half to cut Eatern's lead to 52-40 at intermission.
OPSU began the second half by outscoring the Greyhounds 21-11 over the first 6:31 to pull within two. Gilliam made a free throw and hit a three to start a 10-0 run for Eastern.
The Greyhounds took their largest lead of the game of 20, 90-70, following a dunk courtesy of junior forward
Jason Clardy.
Antonio Manns, Jr. of the Aggies scored the final six points of the game in 11 seconds to prevent them from falling by double-digits for the second straight game.
Senior guard
Michael Randle followed his career night on Friday with 18 points on 6-of-11 shooting, was 5-for-5 from the charity stripe, dished out three assists and had two rebounds and steals. Adding 17 points and seven rebounds was junior forward
Lawrence Domingo while junior guards
Deyton De La Cerda and Gilliam contributed 12 and 11 points apiece, respectively.
Grabbing a game-high 12 rebounds was Clardy. De La Cerda dished out a team-high four assists while six other Hounds had an assist apiece.
Means scored a game-high 36 points with 31 coming in the second half. He also grabbed a team-best eight boards and had one of the Aggies' three steals.
Eastern was 34-for-76 (44.7 percent) from the field while going 10-of-40 from beyond the arc. The 40 attempted three-pointers is the most in team history since the 2000-01 season. They also made 24-of-35 (68.6 percent) at the free throw line and outrebounded OPSU 50-41.
The Aggies made only 38.1 percent (24-of-63) of their shots and were 8-for-24 (33.3 percent) on threes. They stayed in the game by making 38-of-47 (80.9 percent) of their attempts at the charity stripe.
Next up for the Greyhounds is a trip to Colorado. They will face Colorado State-Pueblo at 7 p.m. on Tuesday.
For the latest information on Greyhound basketball, follow
@ENMUSports on Twitter and visit ENMU's official website at GoEasternAthletics.com.