After taking its up-tempo, high-flying offense on the road for the first three games of the season, the Lancaster Bible men's basketball team returned home on Tuesday night to entertain the home crowd and the Chargers did not disappoint as they defeated Eastern, 103-91 and improved to 4-0 this season, the best start in the program's 44-year history. 

How it Happened: Lancaster Bible got off to another fast start as Dondre Perry hit a jumper nine seconds into the game and fellow senior Jordan Mellinger hit the first of his four 3-pointers on the Chargers' next possession to give the home team a 5-0 lead just 47 seconds into the game. With the Chargers leading 10-7, Perry missed a layup in transition, but senior CJ Dunston was there to clean up the rebound as he grabbed the ball above the rim and slammed home two of his 17 points.

The teams traded buckets over the next few minutes as the Chargers maintained a small lead. After two free throws by Eastern's Shaquan Turk cut the Eagles' deficit to just three at 19-16, Lancaster Bible used an 8-0 run to open up its largest lead at 27-16. All eight points came courtesy of Mellinger and Ty Constein as Constein capped the run with a fastbreak layup and then hit the adjoining free throw after he was fouled to complete the three-point play. 

Eastern would battle back again and a 3-pointer from Malcolm Garrison cut the Eagles' deficit to seven at 35-28, but once again, the Chargers used a big scoring run to turn the tide and regain the momentum. Lancaster Bible scored the next nine points and took a 44-28 lead after Jon Bird's jumper with 4:16 to play in the first half. The Chargers would lead by as many as 17 points, before Turk hit a jumper with 0.8 seconds remaining in the half to produce the halftime score of 51-36.

The Eagles scored the first four points of the second half and trailed just 51-40 with 19:11 to play, but a 14-4 run by Lancaster Bible over the next 4:12, put the game away for the Chargers as they took a 20-point lead at 65-45 thanks to a 3-point barrage from Mellinger, Dunston and Bryce Williams. Williams hit from downtown on back-to-back possessions and Kurt Keltner's layup the next time down the floor pushed the advantage to 20 and forced Eastern to call a timeout.

The middle of the second half belonged to senior Luke Roundy as he scored eight points in just four minutes as he found space in the lane and connected on four of his five shot attempts. The Chargers led by 20 or more points for most of the second half and took their biggest lead of the game with 3:34 to play as Herbie Brown hit a layup for two of his seven points. The Eagles made things a bit interesting at the end as they capitalized on a few Lancaster Bible miscues and even cut their deficit to single digits at 100-91 with 33 seconds to play, before the Chargers put the game away with free throws down the stretch.

By the Numbers: Lancaster Bible scored 51 points in the first half and 52 in the second as the Chargers shot 56.3 percent (40-of-71) from the floor...The Chargers were also 11-of-22 from beyond the arc, including a 7-of-11 showing in the second half...Mellinger finished with a team-high 20 points, 15 of which came in the first half...Dunston had 17 points, seven rebounds and seven assists, while Williams finished with 15 points, seven assists and five boards...Perry also finished with double figures as he had 11 points and Bird chipped in with 10 points on 5-of-7 shooting...Keltner had a typical Kurt Keltner game as he had nine points, nine rebounds, five assists and three steals...Shaquan Turk led the Eagles with 25 points.

The Coach Says: "I'm happy with our performance tonight, especially coming off such a great weekend," Lancaster Bible Head Coach Zach Filzen said. "The first 35 minutes of the game were great and there are some things we can shore up defensively to make sure the last few minutes don't happen again." ... On the play of the role players and bench guys: "It is tough to play at the pace we do and in order to play at that pace, you need to have depth and I think we have that," Filzen said. "There isn't much drop off from our first five to our next couple of guys and when there is a good mix of both on the floor, we can basically do the same thing we do the rest of the game." ... On beginning conference play next week: "We need to be better defensively and figure a few things out on that end of the floor," Filzen said. "I thought we took a step backward tonight with the way we play defense, especially after such a great weekend of playing defense. Offensively, we need to work on our half-court sets a little bit and make sure we can get points of those as well. Obviously our transition play has been really good, but we need to make sure we can get points from our sets as well."

Extra! Extra!: The 2005-06 season was the only other time the Chargers began the year 3-0...After beginning the year 3-0, the Chargers lost to Eastern Mennonite in its fourth game...The last time Lancaster Bible topped the 100-point mark was Dec. 6, 2013 when the Chargers defeated Cazenovia, 102-54...The last time the team had 103 points was Jan. 24, 2012 when Lancaster Bible produced an epic comeback to beat Penn St. Abington, 103-99 in overtime...Lancaster Bible is 3-0 this season against teams with bird nicknames...Elizabethtown (Blue Jays), Messiah (Falcons) and Eastern (Eagles)...The Chargers have won 19 straight regular season home games at Horst Athletic Center...The last home regular season loss came on Dec. 16, 2013 vs. Mount Aloysius.

Up Next: Lancaster Bible opens North Eastern Athletic Conference play on Wednesday, Dec. 2 as the Chargers will head north on Route 222 to take on Penn St. Berks...Tip-off is set for 6 p.m.