Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Eastern Washington University junior Tanner Groves goes for two against Washington State University last Saturday. Groves had a career high 17 points while also hauling down nine rebounds and dishing out three assists in the Eagles 71-68 season-opening loss.
PULLMAN - Had he touched the ball yet all game?
WSU 7'1" center Volodymyr Markovetskyy, who went in during the second half - hand-raised, arm out - got no reply until Noah Williams fed him in the final minute for an emphatic dunk, giving the Cougars a game-breaking lead over Eastern Washington on a night WSU trailed for most of it, winning 71-68.
Markovetskyy's score came just before EWU's Jacob Davison hit a 3-pointer to cut the lead to one and Eastern got the ball back to work for a last shot with 10 seconds left.
Williams drew a charge on Eastern's Kim Aiken, Jr., with three seconds to go.
After two free throws from Isaac Bonton put the Cougars up by the final score, EWU had a one last shot attempt, from inside half court; contact, no-call, game over.
Williams, a sophomore from Seattle's O'Dea High School, led WSU (2-0) with a career-high 19 points and eight rebounds. Tanner Groves had 17 points and nine rebounds for Eastern (0-1), while his brother Jacob Groves added 16 points and eight rebounds.
The game began all EWU, which led 16-3 at one point before Washington State cut the margin to six at half.
In the second period, Cougar forward Brandton Chatfield, a redshirt freshman on the young team, hit a two-footer underneath for the game's first tie. Another possible tie at 48-48 was nullified by a goal-tending call against WSU - which was playing its 2020-21 home-opener last Saturday amidst no fans, piped-in background din and hip-hop over timeouts.
A dunk by Eastern's Jacob Groves brought an extra layer of recorded sound.
Groves, a sophomore forward from Shadle Park in Spokane, then hit a 10-foot turnaround jumper to put the Eagles back up by four. WSU's Williams later downed a three-pointer from the top of the key to cut the lead to two with under five minutes remaining.
Groves tied it again at 63-63, followed by a Williams drive. Groves then stole a pass, but the Cougars evened the score and Williams made two free throws to put his team up four with 1:07 left.
A runner from Davison followed, cutting the WSU lead back to two before Williams slipped the ball to Markovetskyy for the exclamation point before the end. WSU had a four-point lead with 44 seconds left and held, taking the first game between the two schools since 2012.
After the buzzer, each team's players and coaches - who sat on three-row benches for social-distancing purposes - waved to each other from downcourt.
Eastern Washington played the game without five scholarship players, out due to COVID-19 protocols, including starting guard Ellis Magnuson.
The game was Jacob Groves first start for the Eagles. WSU holds a 56-11 record all-time against Eastern, their last loss to the Eagles was in 1997.
The next game on EWU's recently-revised schedule is Dec. 9 at UNLV, but Eastern is trying to add a non-conference opponent this week after the cancellation of EWU's scheduled home opener on Nov. 30. The Eagles were scheduled to open Big Sky Conference play on Dec. 3 and 5 at Northern Arizona in Flagstaff, but those games have been moved to Dec. 18 and 19.
Eastern will play on back-to-back days with 24 hours between games, but no starting times have been determined as of yet.
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