Greyhounds win over Angelo State 83-71

PORTALES — The Eastern New Mexico men’s basketball team pushed its win streak to five games thanks to a dominate second half and secured an 83-71 victory over Angelo State on Saturday.

Playing their last home game of the season, the Hounds (12-11, 9-6 LSC) limited Angelo State (16-7, 9-5 LSC) to just 29 second-half points and a 23.5 percent (8-of-39) shooting percentage from the field in order to come back from a 42-28 halftime deficit. Senior Arcaim Lallemand put together a story-book ending to his career inside Greyhound Arena with 19 points and 11 rebounds to help lead three other seniors that scored double-digit points in the contest, including seniors Maurice Coleman and Chukuka Emili, who also had double-doubles on the night.

Coleman had 16 points and 11 rebounds while Emili totaled 13 points and 10 rebounds on an afternoon in which Eastern out-rebounded the Rams 49-43 for the game. An 18-7 Angelo State run in the final eight minutes of the first half pushed their advantage to 42-28 heading into the halftime break.

Eastern New Mexico opened up the second half on a 12-7 run to narrow the deficit to just 49-42 with 14:23 remaining in the game and then prevented the Rams from scoring a field goal for nearly 10 minutes from the 14:03 mark down to the 5:21 mark. That defensive stand allowed the Hounds to pick apart the Angelo State defense and pushed themselves ahead 59-54 with just over five minutes remaining on the clock.

The Hounds closed out the game flawlessly in the final minutes of the game, never allowing Angelo State back to within five points by going 13-of-14 from the free-throw line as a unit throughout those final five minutes. Senior Zach Parker also contributed heavily to the outstanding final five minutes of basketball for the Hounds with seven points throughout that stretch, including a highlight-reel dunk off the backboard to himself to put the exclamation point on a come from behind victory for Eastern New Mexico.

Parker finished the contest with 19 points on 8-of-18 shooting for the evening. Eastern shot 43.1 percent (28-of-65) from the field as a team and recorded nine blocks throughout the game as well.

The Greyhounds’ five-game winning streak is their longest of the season, and also moves their overall record to above .500 for the first time all season. Eastern New Mexico now sits in fourth place in the LSC standings with a conference record of 9-6 and will close out the remainder of the season on the road, finishing with a record of 7-2 inside Greyhound Arena for the year.

“Greyhound Arena has been really good to us,” Eastern head coach Tres Segler said. “We’ve had good crowds who have been really good to us.”

The Hounds will get that road stretch started Thursday against Texas A&M-Commerce at 6:30 p.m.