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The Eastern Eagles play in the always tough Southern Ohio Conference 2 Division. Their win Friday came against an impressive New Hope Christian Academy, which is a non OHSAA member school, but always proves they can play against that level of competition.
The Eagles beat the Statesmen 65-61 in their Friday match up at Ohio Christian University’s Maxwell Center, located outside of Circleville.
Eastern held a 17-16 lead after the first quarter, then took off to a 24-16 lead with 5:19 left in the first half. The Statesmen battled back with a 12-2 run for a 28-26 lead, only to see the Eagles even the score on a Jace White bucket inside to even the score at 28-28 at halftime.
Eastern blitzed to a 35-28 lead to start the third quarter, forcing New Hope to call a timeout with 4:52 remaining in the period. New Hope gathered themselves and pulled to within 35-31, before the Eagles worked their way back up to a 42-34 lead. But, as was the case all game, every time Eastern built up a big lead, New Hope came battling back. They shaved Eastern’s lead to 42-36 after three quarters and were down 46-40 with 5:51 left in the game. The Eagles pushed out to a double-digit lead of 53-42 with 4:04 left and 62-51 with 1:00 to play.
But, the Statesmen had one more valiant run. After cutting Eastern’s lead to 64-58, 6’7 center Lane Bruning was fouled on a three-point attempt. He succeeded in hitting all three free throws to get within 64-61, but the Eagles sealed the win with a free throw on the other end for the 65-61 final score.
The victorious Eagles were led by Neil Leist’s 19 points, followed by Brewer Tomlinson with 18, Jace White 12, 6 for Wyatt Richardson, 4 each from Tucker Leist and Dylan Morton and 2 from Teagan Werner.
New Hope’s Clayton Rhyne led all players with 31 points, Lane Bruning added 19, Tyler Cook 4, Hunter Cavanaugh with 3, and 2 each from Adam Rink and Andrew Swank.
Eastern evens their season record at (7-7) and New Hope slips to (8-3).
Watch some of the game highlights, along with coaches and player interviews of this and other area games on our Litter Media Postgame Show. CLICK BELOW TO WATCH:
