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HomeSportsAPSU Governors Basketball loses to Eastern Illinois Panthers 67-64

APSU Governors Basketball loses to Eastern Illinois Panthers 67-64

Austin Peay State University Governors Sports - APSUCharleston, IL – For a second straight game Austin Peay State University’s basketball team could not mount a finishing kick and, as a result, for the second straight game the Govs were handed a frustrating Ohio Valley Conference road defeat.

Austin Peay Men's Basketball falls to Samford 85-63. (Michael Rios-Clarksville Sports Network)
Austin Peay Men’s Basketball falls to Samford 85-63. (Michael Rios-Clarksville Sports Network)

Eastern Illinois scored on its final four possessions to defeat the Govs, 67-64, Saturday afternoon at Lantz Arena. The loss dropped APSU below the .500 mark in OVC play at 2-3 while EIU improved to 6-12 overall and 3-4 in the OVC. It was APSU’s third straight loss.

After Chris Horton made a pair of free throws with 4:06 left to give APSU a 57-56 lead, Eastern Illinois efficiently used the clock to score on each possession during the game’s remainder, the final one when Luke Piotrowski missed a short jump hook—the Panthers only miss in the final four minutes—only to have Panthers forward Sherman Blanford clean up the miss with a put-back with 16.5 seconds left for a 67-64 advantage.

Damarius SmithDamarius Smith’s right corner three pointer at the buzzer hit the front iron as the Govs incurred their second straight heartbreaking defeat.

APSU owned as much as a four-point second-half lead on a Will Triggs dunk with 8:24 left but EIU erased it in less than 1 ½ minutes as there were four ties and 10 lead changes alone in the final half.

With 1:25 left and APSU trailing by one, transfer guard Reggie Smith knocked down a three to give EIU a four-point lead only to have Travis Betran answer with one for the Govs. That set up Blanford’s stick back.

Will TriggsTriggs led APSU with 15 points on 6-og-10 shooting—the 6-5 senior forward eclipsed the 1,000-career point mark  while Chris Horton recorded his season’s 10th double-double with 13 points and 11 rebounds. Betran’s late three gave him 11 points.

The Govs finished the night shooting 48.7 percent (23 of 47). They did cut down their turnovers numbers to 13 after Thursday’s 22 at SIUE, but those numbers are slightly askew from the standpoint of the low number of game possessions by both teams.

Smith finished with 15 for EIU while Piotrowski added 12. Connecting on less than 30 percent of their three-point attempts coming in, connected on 7-of-16 (43.8 percent). In fact, EIU finished the night 26 of 49 )53.1 percent) on the night including 14-of-23 (60 percent) in the second half.

Box Score

Austin Peay Governors vs. Eastern Illinois Panthers
Saturday, January 18th, 2014 | 2:00pm CT
Charleston, IL | Lantz Arena

1 2 T
Austin Peay Governors 35 29 64
Eastern Illinois Panthers 34 33 67
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