Eastern dry spells too costly

Sun., Nov. 21, 2004

From staff and wire reports

WICHITA, Kan. – Marc Axton opened his senior season with a 16-point first-half performance, but the rest of the game didn’t go as well as Eastern Washington lost to Wichita State 80-62 Saturday in the season-opening men’s basketball game for both schools at Charles Koch Arena.

Eastern, playing with three new starters in the lineup, had scoreless stretches of 6 and 4 minutes that helped the Shockers of the Missouri Valley Conference pull away. The Eagles play the second of three straight road games to open the season when they play at Cal Poly on Monday.

“I was proud of our effort and our players deserve to be commended for that,” said Mike Burns after his debut as EWU’s head coach. “We failed to execute at some crucial times, and that will happen with a team that has some inexperience on the perimeter. Those are things that we will get better at, and when we do we will be better at maximizing those possessions at crucial times. Then you’ll see games like this come out on the other end of the ledger.”

Axton made 5-of-8 3-pointers in the first half, but had just three points in the second half to finish the game with 19. He also had five rebounds and five assists.

Eagles redshirt freshman Henry Bekkering came off the bench to score 11 points for the Eagles, and sophomore Matt Nelson had a double-double with 11 points and 11 boards. Junior Danny Pariseau scored all nine of his points in the second half and added a pair of steals.

Wichita State was led by 6-foot-10 junior Paul Miller with 16 points. Six-foot-5 senior forward Jamar Howard finished with 15 points, and most importantly, held Axton in check in the second half.

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Eastern dry spells too costly

Jesse Tinsley

Jim Meehan

Molly Quinn

Rob Curley

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