WILLIMANTIC, Conn. – The Eastern Connecticut State University men's basketball team connected on four three-point field goals in the first five minutes and scored the game's first 14 points on the way to a 69-40 Little East Conference decision over Castleton University Saturday afternoon at Francis E. Geissler Gymnasium.
With its fourth win in five games, Eastern (10-12, 7-6 LEC) climbed back over the .500 mark in the conference and opened up a 2 ½ game lead over Rhode Island College for the sixth and final LEC tournament berth and remained a half-game out of securing a first-round tournament home game as a No. 3 or No. 4 seed.
Castleton's point total is the lowest allowed by Eastern this year and is the lowest in the ten-game series between the two teams.
In the first half, Castleton (3-17, 0-12 LEC) shot only 20 percent from the floor and Eastern made the Spartans' eight turnovers costly ones by scoring 15 points off of those miscues. Eastern's 20-point halftime lead was its largest of the half.
Senior guards Tyreice Woods (Hartford), Hunter Baillargeon (Norwich) and Jalen Williams (Simsbury) combined for Eastern's four early three-pointers, with Williams' second one in that stretch 4:53 into the game giving him 1,000 points in a four-year college career and capping the opening run of 14 straight points.
Williams scored 13 of his game-high 15 points in the first half and finished the day with 1,009 career points in 64 games. A total of 618 of his points have come in 37 games at Eastern after he scored 391 points in 27 games as a freshman at Pine Manor College in 2019/20. He becomes the 14th player under current 21st-year head coach Bill Geitner to score as many as 1,000 collegiate points.
Woods followed Williams with 12 points (and had three blocks), with Williams and senior forward Quinton Lott (Bridgeport) sharing game-high rebounding honors with nine each. Williams also had five assists and two steals, with Lott's rebounds coming in 15 minutes off the bench.
Senior guard John Walsh led Castleton with 11 points and freshman forward Carter Mackey and senior guard Mu Moore sharing team-high rebounding honors with eight each.
Following a 73-64 win at the Murray Center one month ago, Eastern hopes for a regular-season series sweep of Rhode Island College when it hosts the Anchormen Wednesday at 7 p.m. The Anchormen (6-14, 4-8 LEC) were idle Saturday and bring a three-game losing streak into action Wednesday. Rhode Island has lost eight of its last ten.