LEWISTON– Six players reached double-figures for the Lewis-Clark State Men’s Basketball team in an 84-66 victory against Eastern Oregon in a Cascade Conference game at the P1FCU Activity Center on Saturday.
“It was awesome to see our guys’ response tonight after a tough one yesterday,” coach Austin Johnson said. “Everyone stepped up and had an impact.”
Alton Hamilton tied a career high with 18 points to lead the Warriors who improved to 16-6 on the season and 14-2 in conference play. The Mountaineers fall to 9-13 overall and 8-8 in CCC competition.
“Alton did a great job inside and Anthony Peoples Jr. did a great job of giving our guards different looks offensively with his ball screens,” Johnson said.
Quentin Raynor added 14 points on 5-of-11 shooting and 4-of-10 from beyond the arc. Davian Brown finished with 13 points, Jaedon Bradley had 12 and Gorden Boykins finished with 10 points. John Lustig was a perfect 5-of-5 from the field in an 11-point performance. Sam Stockton led the team with six rebounds.
LC State shot 69.6% from the field in the second half including 13-of-16 (81.3%) from inside the 3-point line. LC outscored Eastern Oregon 42-38 inside the paint and 28-15 off the bench. The Warriors held EOU to 2-of-20 (10%) shooting from 3.
“EOU is a tough team to defend,” Johnson added. “For us to limit them from 3 like that was the difference tonight.”
Garrett Hawkes led the Mountaineers with 20 points. Jonny Hillman hit the only two 3-pointers for EOU and finished with nine points and seven rebounds.
HOW IT HAPPENED
The two teams played an evenly contested game for the first five minutes. Hamilton found himself in a battle inside with former Warrior Brennen Newsom. The two traded multiple baskets with Newsom collecting a Hillman pass for a layup to give the Mountaineers an early three-point lead. Brown got in the action with a layup of his own to cut the lead to 9-8.
EOU pushed the lead to seven, its largest advantage of the game, after a 10-4 run. Layups by Lustig, Boykins and Hamilton combined with 3s from Brown and Raynor pushed the Warriors in front 24-23.
After a Hawkes jumper, Brown connected with a shot and gave LC State the lead again, one that they would not relinquish. The basket by Brown started a 13-2 run capped off by a Lustig jumper that sent the Warriors into the locker room with a 37-27 lead.
Hawkes and Eastern Oregon shot out of the gates in the second half and cut the lead to six as Hawkes scored seven points in a two-and-a-half-minute stretch. The two teams traded baskets over several minutes. Hawkes added another two points to cut the LC lead to 56-48 with 11:17 remaining, and then the Warriors took over.
Lustig hit a layup, Bradley finished an and-1 and Hamilton added four points on an 11-0 LC State run. Stockton hit a layup with 6:34 to go to push the Warrior lead to 20. Bradley added a jumper to give LC State its largest lead of the game 73-51 with 5:56 left.
“We have a big road trip ahead and we’ll need to be even more locked in to be successful,” Johnson said. “Excited to be on the journey with this group.”
UP NEXT
The Warriors go on the road to face two of the top five teams in the Cascade Conference. LC State travels to Eugene, Ore., to play Bushnell at 2 p.m. on Friday and Salem, Ore., to play Corban at 5 p.m. on Saturday.
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