Published: December 26, 2007 02:24 pm         

Season-high shooting night takes Eagles over UT-Martin

Morehead State notched season highs in all three shooting categories as the Eagles claimed their Ohio Valley Conference home opener on Monday night with an 80-75 victory over Tennessee-Martin. The win snapped MSU’s three-game losing streak and was its first conference win of the season.

Morehead State (3-6/1-2) shot 69 percent from the field in the first half and finished the game hitting a season-best 55.6 percent. The Eagles also made 12-of-14 free throws for 85.7 percent, and connected on 8-of-18 shots from behind the 3-point arc for 44.4 percent.

Senior guard Jamyron Steward had a career-high 20 points and a season-high six assists to lead the Eagles in their OVC home opener.

“I thought I played good. I played with a lot of confidence and tried to be aggressive off the dribble,” said Steward. “We worked on our offense a lot this week and we shot with a lot of confidence and that helped the team win.”

Steward and his teammates had their hands full guarding Lester Hudson, the Skyhawks’ leading scorer at 25.9 points per game who is ranked third nationally in the category.

Hudson was 12-for-20 from the field and 8-for-13 from behind the 3-point arc for 36 points. He also added five steals.

“He’s a good player. We just tried to come out and contain him, but he (still) ended up making a lot of shots. He can shoot really well and we tried to defend and keep him out of the paint, but he ended up making a lot of big threes,” Steward said. “We really just tried to contain him and keep him out of the paint. We did that for the most part, but he did make a lot of shots, a lot of threes.”

Tennessee-Martin (5-5/1-1) scored the game’s first basket, but Morehead State took over from there and once it took the lead never relinquished it. The hosts used an 8-0 run to surge ahead to a 16-7 advantage early in the opening half.

The Skyhawks closed to within a point (31-30 with 6:45 to play in the period) after capping off an 11-2 run. However, the Eagles held off the visitors and extended their lead as high as 11 points, where it ended at halftime after Steward hit a 3-pointer with two seconds remaining on the clock.

MSU made 20-of-29 shots from the field in the opening 20 minutes to help it build a 49-38 halftime advantage. The hosts were equally successful shooting inside and outside. The Eagles scored 22 points in the paint and also made 6-of-11 shots from behind the arc (54.5 percent).

The hosts were able to extend their advantage to 15 points twice in the second half (60-45 at 12:46 and 64-59 at 8:53).

However, the Skyhawks made a furious rally, cutting a 10-point deficit in half with less than a minute remaining in the game. MSU led 76-66 after Steward hit a pair of free throws with 49 seconds left, but Marquis Weddle hit back-to-back 3-pointers over the next 24 seconds to trim the margin to just five points.

John Lamb staved off the comeback by converting a pair of free throws with 22 seconds to play and then Steward repeated the feat six seconds later to seal the victory.

“As a team, we played more confident than we played all year,” said Steward. “We played inside-out tonight for the first time really. We went inside to the post players and let (the ball) come back out to the guards and then we shot (the ball). We ran our offense all the way through and we got good shots. We went inside-out and I think that’s why we got better looks than we usually get.”

Eagle head coach Donnie Tyndall agreed with Steward’s assessment.

“The best players on our team are our front line players like Maze (Stallworth) and Leon (Buchanan) and Kenneth (Faried). So, our game plan is always (to) throw it inside and work inside out. I thought in the first half we really established that,” Tyndall said. “We got some easy baskets around the goal, which loosened up their defense and we got some kick-out threes and some easy shots on the perimeter.”

Three other Eagles joined Steward in scoring in double figures. Stallworth had 17 points and five rebounds, while Buchanan and Faried each tallied 15 points. Buchanan led MSU with eight rebounds, while Faried hauled down six. Nikola Stojakovic finished with 13 assists and five steals.

According to Tyndall, the team’s success followed a predictable pattern.

“Those who have watched us enough will know that we are going to defend and rebound the ball on most nights pretty well,” said Tyndall. “Our front line with Maze, and Leon and Kenneth Faried is a nice front line for our level. I think it is probably among the top three front lines in our conference. Nikola Stojakovic is about as good as any point guard in our league. When Jamyron, John, Demonte (Harper) and Cecil (Brown) make shots, we’ve got a real good team. When they don’t make shots, we are just O.K. The games that they’ve made some shots or stepped up, we’ve won or been right there to win. Tonight we made shots and got a little lead and fortunately held on late.”

Tennessee-Martin also shot well, hitting 43.6 percent of its field goal attempts and 48.4 percent of its 3-pointers. The visitors also had a 34-29 edge in rebounding.

            Hudson and Weddle (24 points) were the only two Skyhawks to record double-digit scoring totals. Djero Riedewald led all rebounders with 11, while Olajide Hay finished with seven. Carlos Wright added 12 assists.

MSU returned to action on Wednesday night and came away with an 80-75 home win over Eastern Illinois.