Sluggish Eagles top UCI

They didn’t finish with much flair, but the Eastern Washington University Eagles did enough down the stretch Sunday night to survive.

Paced by the scoring of Benny Valentine and the all-around play of Andy Genao, Eastern overcame some early shooting woes and defensive lapses – along with several late second-half hiccups –to turn back the University of California Irvine 78-64 in front of a Reese Court crowd of 1,264.

Valentine, a junior point guard, finished with a game-high 21 points, and Genao, a senior wing, added a 14-point, 10-rebound double-double as the Eagles (4-2) beat the visiting Anteaters (0-5) for the second time this season. Genao’s double-double was his second of the year, with his other having come in a 74-69 road win over UCI in mid-November.

“Andy probably wishes we could play California schools all the time,” EWU coach Kirk Earlywine said after the non-conference victory.

But Genao, like most of Eastern’s starters – with the exception of Valentine – took his time finding a rhythm as Irvine breezed to an early lead behind the outside shooting of Brett Lauer, who scored 15 of his team-high 16 points on five first-half 3-pointers.

Genao, a 6-foot-3 transfer from Prairie View A&M, scored 12 of his points and pulled down six of his rebounds after intermission, helping the Eagles build on their one-point halftime lead and eventually carve out an 18-point second half advantage that proved too much for the Anteaters to overcome.

“I made a couple of mistakes in the first half that kind of motivated me to come out in the second and play hard for the sake of my team,” said Genao, who finished 7 of 12 from the field. “We came out a little slow and I figured it was my job to start it up in the second half.”

Earlywine, while a bit put off by his team’s first-half defensive performance, still found plenty to like in Genao’s second-half effort and the game-long steadiness of Valentine, who scored all but six of his points in the first half while his teammates were struggling.

“I don’t have an explanation for us allowing No. 23 (Lauer) to hit five 3s in the first half,” Earlywine said. “Obviously, the scouting report was to not give up 3s to him, but we did. And to his credit, he knocked them down.

“And I thought even Andy got a little out of character for him. I thought he tried to play pretty in the first half, and Andy’s forte is not being aesthetically pleasing. He needs to be a hard-hat, lunch-pail, get-your-hands-dirty kind of guy.”

Earlywine added he thought Valentine saved his team during a first half in which his teammates went 7-for-22 from the field.

“He almost singlehandedly bought us time for the other guys to get going,” he said of his 5-6 floor leader. “And in the second half, I thought he did a good job of not going crazy and taking bad shots.”

Following a ragged first half, Eastern broke the game open midway through the final period by stringing together 14 unanswered points that produced a 51-37 lead that was never threatened.

Eastern fell behind 18-8 midway through the opening period. The Eagles made only three of their first 15 field-goal attempts and were losing the rebounding battle 11-4 at that point.

But then Valentine took over, knocking down back-to-back 3-pointers to ignite a 10-0 run that tied the game briefly before UCI methodically carved out another 29-24 lead just 2 ½ minutes prior to intermission. That lead, too, proved to be short lived, as the Eagles answered with another five-point run and took its first lead of the game when Jeff Christensen – courtesy of a nifty assist from Valentine – drilled a 3-pointer from the right corner to put Eastern up 32-31 at halftime.

EWU 78, UC Irvine 64

 UC Irvine (0-5)—DeCasas 2-6 0-0 5, Wise 3-8 7-8 13, Bland 5-13 3-6 13, Hunter 5-12 0-0 13, Lauer 5-7 1-2 16, Eberhard 0-2 0-0 0, Rembert 0-4 0-0 0, Moore 0-0 0-0 0, Folker 0-0 0-0 0, Strings 2-4 0-0 4, Atkinson 0-2 0-0 0. Totals 22-58 11-16 64.

Eastern Washington (4-2)—Genao 7-12 0-0 14, Dunn 3-4 0-1 6, Moore 2-10 2-4 6, Valentine 6-11 6-9 21, Stanojevic 3-6 3-3 10, Christensen 1-2 4-4 7, Gibson 1-2 7-8 9, Gross 1-2 0-0 3, Brunell 1-3 0-0 2. Totals 25-52 22-29 78.

Halftime—E. Washington 32-31. 3-Point Goals—UC Irvine 9-20 (Lauer 5-6, Hunter 3-7, DeCasas 1-2, Eberhard 0-1, Rembert 0-1, Bland 0-3), E. Washington 6-14 (Valentine 3-6, Gross 1-1, Christensen 1-1, Stanojevic 1-4, Gibson 0-1, Brunell 0-1). Fouled Out—Bland. Rebounds—UC Irvine 31 (Bland 11), E. Washington 38 (Genao 10). Assists—UC Irvine 13 (Hunter, Rembert 3), E. Washington 16 (Christensen 4). Total Fouls—UC Irvine 25, E. Washington 17. A—1,264.