Red Devils Clinch Sixth Straight Win at Spalding, 76-68
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The Eureka men's basketball team extended its winning streak to six games with a 76-68 win at Spalding on Saturday, securing first-round home-court advantage for the St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Tournament.
It's Eureka's first six-game winning streak since the 2012-13 season.
All five starters reached double figures in the victory.
Peewee Brown (Peoria, Ill./Manual/Lincoln) recorded his second double-double as a Red Devil, tallying a team-high 20 points and 10 rebounds. He shot 7-for-14 from the field and made 6-of-8 from the free-throw line.
Cody Baer (Peoria, Ill./Dunlap/Southwestern Illinois) also had a double-double with 18 points and a team-high 13 rebounds.
Austyn Ellison (Hudson, Ill./Bloomington Central Catholic) posted 16 points and dished a team-high seven assists. Logan Dorethy (Hamilton, Ill./West Hancock/MacMurray) added 11 points and nine rebounds, while Noah Persich (Peoria, Ill./Metamora/Parkland) had 11 points and five boards.
After a low-scoring start to the game, Eureka went on a 10-0 run to take a double-digit lead midway through the first half.
The Red Devils led by as many as 15 before halftime and went into the half with a 31-19 advantage after Spalding's Maxton Campbell hit a 3 before the buzzer.
The second half began with the teams trading baskets a couple of times before Eureka ripped off an 11-2 run to make it a 20-point game. A pair of free throws by Brown made it 46-25 and a Persich jumper gave the visitors a game-high 23-point lead with 14:57 to play.
There was still a lot of time left for Spalding to dig its way out of the hole, and over the next 11 1/2 minutes, the Golden Eagles managed to outscore EC 37-20 and trim the lead to six points.
A jumper by Anthony Dillard made it 70-64 with 3:32 left.
Brown answered with a jumper on the other end, but Dillard came back and made it a six-point game again with a layup off an assist by Caden Bradford with 1:36 remaining.
A jumper by Charlie Storm following an EC turnover made it a four-point game just over a minute to play.
By then, though, the Golden Eagles had to foul, and Eureka finished it off at the free-throw line. Ellison and Baer both put a pair away to seal the win.
Dillard finished with a double-double of a game-high 22 points and 15 rebounds for Spalding. Storm added 13 points off the bench.
Eureka shot 50 percent from the field and from beyond the arc, and made 19-of-22 free-throw attempts. It was the team's second-best free-throw shooting percentage and tied for its second-best 3-pointer percentage in SLIAC play this season.
The Red Devils held Spalding to a 33.3 field-goal percentage and a 25 3-point percentage. The Golden Eagles shot just 44.8 percent from the stripe. Eureka also notched 15 assists to Spalding's seven.
At the end of Saturday's slate of SLIAC games, Eureka finished third in the SLIAC standings with a 9-5 record in league play and an 11-14 record overall.
On Wednesday at 7 p.m., the third-seeded Red Devils will host sixth-seeded Greenville (7-18, 6-8 SLIAC) in a SLIAC Tournament quarterfinal matchup inside Christine Bonati Bollwinkle Arena and Convocation Center.