Eagles take a win and loss against RMAC teams

CSC men’s basketball team put 107 points on the board against Western Colorado University, the most points the Eagles have stacked on a Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference opponent in 19 years with five Eagles reaching double digits and beating the Mountaineers, 107-96.

“It was exciting to see our guys attack the basket,” Shane Paben, head men’s basketball coach, said. “We went at them, we were the aggressors.”

KJ Harris, junior of McKinney, Texas, lead the team with his season best of 23 points. He was seven of eight for field goals and three of four for three pointers. Harris was one of two players to be 100% from the free-throw line with six shots.

Marcus Jefferson, junior of Lewisville, Texas, hit a double-double night by scoring 18 points and crashing the boards for 10 rebounds to lead the team.

CJ Jennings, senior of Colorado Springs; Mason Hiemstra, junior of Alliance; and Porter Anderson, sophomore of Russellville, Arkansas, were two points above one another with 17, 15 and 13 points respectively.

“It felt good to hit double figures on Saturday especially it being my first game back in almost two weeks,” Hiemstra said. “I was mainly just happy to get the win on the road.”

Paben said Hiemstra has had bad luck with his season and being able to suit up for games.

“But that’s just pretty much our season,” he said. “If we wouldn’t have bad luck, we wouldn’t have luck at all.”

Jennings was the second player for the Eagles to be 100% from the free-throw line with seven attempts.

Jennings carried his game into Tuesday’s game to lead the Eagles with 21 points against Black Hills State University in Spearfish, South Dakota. He built the lead up to 48-43 with three baskets from the arc in the first five minutes of the second half.

“I thought we played a really good 23 minutes,” Paben said. “They (BHSU) are a good team, and you have to put together 40 minutes to win a game. Our lack of depth really hurts us too.”

Jefferson was the only other Eagle to hit double digits against BHSU with 16 points.

CSC started off strong, scoring the first points of the game and finishing the first half with a one-point lead, 35-34.

The Eagles weren’t able to hold onto their lead when the Yellow Jackets soared past when their shots started sinking. CSC wasn’t able to catch back up and took the loss, 83-65.

“In the second half, they (BHSU) just had a couple good runs, and we had some shots that didn’t fall for us that usually do.” Hiemstra said. “They got some momentum and we just never seemed to get it back late in the second half,” 

CSC face South Dakota School of Mines at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in the Chicoine Center, following the woman’s basketball team.