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Men
Comeback Again to Defeat Northwest in OT, 83-74
December
20, 2003
Box
Score
LA GRANDE, Ore. - After missing his
first attempt to tie the game at 66-66, senior forward Bryan Rabas
got a favorable tipped rebound back to him from teammate Tony Luper,
and then buried a jumper from 24-feet out from in front the Eastern
Oregon bench to send the game to overtime. In
overtime, Eastern Oregon kept the momentum going to outscore the
Eagles, 17-8 to come away with a hard-fought, Cascade Collegiate
Conference victory over a game Northwest College club. The
loss was the second-consecutive overtime defeat for Northwest, who had
just lost to Albertson College, 77-76 the night before. Eastern
Oregon was without the services of starting point guard Tyree Jones,
who was a scratch from the lineup with a foot injury suffered in the
Evergreen game on Wednesday. Both
teams were unimpressive in the first half as Eastern shot a putrid
33.3% on 8-of-24 shots, while Northwest's up-tempo offense got them 13
field goals on 39 attempts, also 33.3%, for a 34-25 lead at the break. In
fact, it took 2 minutes and 39 seconds before either team was able to
score... and that was on a free throw by EOU's Trevor Exline. The
Eagles took their halftime lead of nine points and built a 12-point
lead with 15:20 left in the game. That would be the largest lead
by Northwest on the evening. Eastern
sliced that lead to just one point with a 10-0 run over the next 3
minutes and 35 seconds to get the score to 41-40 with 11:45 left in
the game. Northwest would respond
with clutch shooting after Mountaineer miscues, to build the lead back
to, a nine point lead at 64-55 with 1:28 left in the game. However,
two free throws by Larry Smith, then an Eagle turnover that led to a
Rabas three-pointer, cut the lead to four with exactly one minute left
in the game. Eastern's Tony Luper
then forced Northwest's Andrew Gard into a turnover. He found
Trevor Exline, who buried a trey to cut the lead, again to one, with
34 seconds. After Eastern's final
timeout, Bryan Rabas fouled NWC's Grant Enloe, who nailed both free
throws, to push the lead back to three at 66-63 with 28 seconds
remaining. Larry Smith got
a three-point attempt off on the ensuing possession, but it missed the
mark and Smith had to foul the Eagles' Aaron Sawyer to stop the clock. Sawyer
missed both ends of the double-bonus free throws. Jason Crawley
grabbed the rebound and got the ball into the hands of Rabas, who had
a good look at the game-tying three, but missed long off the back of
the iron. Luper, on the offensive rebound, tossed the ball back
to Rabas. Luper's pass went through two different Eagle
defender's hand before finding Rabas. Rabas took a timing
dribble to his left and let fly a 24-foot shot that found nothing but
the bottom of the net; tying the game at 66-66 and sending the game
into overtime. In the extra
period, Eastern dominated the Eagles shooting 62.5% on 5-of-8 field
goals and 7 free throws. Northwest could not buy a bucket in OT
as they could muster only three field goals including a "gimmie"
at the end of the five extra minutes. Eastern
Oregon placed three player with 20-plus points this evening, led by
the 27 points of Larry Smith and the 26 points and 9 rebounds from
Trevor Exline. Bryan Rabas also had 20 points for the winning
team. Sawyer led the Eagled with
a double-double of 16 points and 11 boards. Gard topped all
Northwest players with 18 points and Tyson Dodd chipped in with 11
rebounds. Both teams with take
off the next 13 days before returning to action after the new year.
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