LA GRANDE, Ore. – Behind 41 points and 15 rebounds from Kyllian Wood, the Eastern Oregon Mountaineers came back to hand the Evergreen Geoducks a 79-69 defeat in a Cascade Conference men’s basketball game on Saturday night at Quinn Coliseum in La Grande, Ore.
Eastern Oregon quickly took control from the opening tip as the Mounties held an eight-point lead with 14:03 left to play at 12-4. The Geoducks final awoke and battled back to tie the game at 19-19 on a three-pointer by Cody Peters (Oak Harbor, Wash./Coupeville HS/Western Oregon Univ.) with 8:12 to go in the opening period. Evergreen continued to control the pace, taking a five-point lead into the halftime break at 34-29.
The second-half went back and forth until about the 2:30 mark as Derek Maloney hit a jumper in the paint to give EOU a two point lead at 67-65 and the Mounties would turn that into a 14-4 run to end the game and earn the regular season ending victory, 79-69.
Evergreen was led by 18 points from senior Kyle Calhoun (Seattle, Wash./Hazen HS/Marshalltown CC). Senior Marc Taylor (Boise, Idaho/Skyview HS/Edmonds CC) earned the double-double in his final collegiate game, putting up 14 points with 12 rebounds in 35 minutes played. Peters finished with 11 points in his collegiate finale while Jordan Dam (Tacoma, Wash./Wilson HS/Centralia College) added 10 points to round out the Geoducks in double-digit scoring.
The Mountaineers were led by the 41 points from Wood, who was 13-of-15 from the field and 15-of-16 on free throws. Tony Eackles added 20 points to combine with Wood for 61 of EOU’s 79 points. The next leading scorer for Eastern was Deonta Edwards, who finished with just five points.
The Geoducks finish the 2013-14 campaign with a record of 4-21 overall and 3-15 in CCC play, tied with Corban for ninth place in the conference standings.