Photo by Jeff Barrett
By Castle Country Radio
The USU Eastern men traveled to Rangely, Colo. on Tuesday for their final game of the regular season against Colorado Northwestern Community College (CNCC). This was the third meeting between the teams this season and a “rubber match” as each team had won on the other’s floor. Unfortunately, the Eagles could not win the season series as they fell 84-72 to the Spartans.
The Eagles got on the board first in the contest and held the lead until almost the 17:00 mark when Kok Dow of Colorado Northwestern took the lead on a layup. The Spartans then used the remainder of the half to push the lead to nine at the break.
In the second half, the Eagles never regained the lead, cutting it as close as eight, but then CNCC would take command and push the lead as high as 21 at one point. The Eagles continued to chip away at the lead but they could never get all the way back, getting the deficit down to 12 with 23 seconds remaining in the game.
Payton Falslev led the Eagles with 14 on 4-9 shooting. Kevin Bethel added 12 and Kurt Wegscheider and Malek Malual each scored 10 in the loss for the Eagles. USU Eastern struggled as they shot 27-73 from the field.
Nahsyah Bolar of Colorado Northwestern led all scorers with 15 on 6-9 shooting. Trevon Cason scored 13 and Dom Rivas 12 as the team shot 44.6% from the field.
The loss puts USU Eastern at 17-11 overall and 9-9 in conference play as they head to the tournament next week at Salt Lake Community College. If everything holds the way it is right now, the men will be the No. 4 seed and will most likely play the College of Southern Nevada on Thursday, Feb. 24 at 7 p.m.