DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- The Florida Memorial University men's basketball team snapped an 11-game losing skid at Embry-Riddle University dating back to Feb. 2, 1996 with a 67-62 victory Saturday night in Florida Sun Conference action from the Lemerand Center at Daytona Beach Community College.

The win helped FMU even their FSC record to 3-3 and share fourth with Northwood University which defeated Webber International 79-64. ERAU drops to 4-2 in the league and share second with Edward Waters which fell 78-72 at Warner Southern which claimed sole possession of first-place with their 5-1 league mark.

Florida Memorial took a 36-34 lead at halftime and came out strong in the second half outscoring the Eagles 11-3 to take a 10-point advantage 47-37 with 13:02 remaining. Reginald Thomas sparked the run scoring seven of his nine points on the night with a three-pointer, layup and tip-in to close out the run.

Embry-Riddle quickly responded overr the next two minutes with an 8-0 run cutting the margin to 47-45. Denver Cobb started the run with a three-pointer and then the Eagles called a 30-second timeout which ERAU head coach Steve Ridder gave a spirited talk and had the team come out in a full-court press. This worked to perfection leading to five consecutive turnovers by the Lions and Embry-Riddle converted on three of those opportunities with layups by Miller and DeBord. Miller had 10 points and 10 rebounds which helped him set the new all-time career mark for rebounds with 824 eclipsing the old mark set by Jeff Moore who had 815 from 1990-94.

FMU rebuilt the 10-point cushion with their own 8-0 run sparked by Andre Thomas with a block of Murat Hisarkaya and grabbed the rebound and finished off the fast break with a dunk. The Lions had three second-chance opportunities on their next possession capped off by a Andre Thomas layup. Florida Memorial's tenacious offensive rebounding (18 on the night) was critical to their success throughout the night outscoring the Eagles 27-9 in second-chance opportunities. Tramaine Stevens added four of his game-high 24 points in the run, while Thomas finished with 10 points and eight rebounds.

Back-to-back threes by ERAU's Ryan Ridder and Denver Cobb cut the lead to 57-53 with 5:46 to go. The Eagles closed the gap to three points at the 5:05, 3:27, 2:28 and 1:04 marks and had several opportunities to tie or trim the margin to one. After a DeBord jumper made it 61-58 with 3:27 to go, the ERAU defense did its job forcing a missed three-pointer by Stevens, but FMU's Andre Beauford came up huge with the offensive board and tip-in with 2:52 left.

A Miller layup cut the lead to 63-60 and once again the Eagle defense forced a missed jumper by Daniel Garcia, but this time Reginald Thomas got the offensive rebound with 1:55 to go and the Lions called a timeout at the 1:48 mark. As the shot clock was winding down, Stevens drove the lane but was fouled by Hisarkaya with one second on the shot clock. Stevens, who finished the night 7-for-7 from the charity stripe, sank both free throws to go ahead 65-60 with 1:19 left.

DeBord hit a layup on the Eagles next possession to make it a three-point game once again. On the next Lion trip up the floor, the Eagles forced the ball into the hands of Reginald Thomas who they wanted on the line because of his 48.5 free throw percentage. Things went the way ERAU wanted as his missed the front end of the 1-and-1, giving the Eagles an opportunity to tie or trim the lead to one. The Eagles chose to go for the two-point bucket, but Ryan Ridder's layup rimmed out and DeBord's tip-in attempt wouldn't fall and the ball fell into Garcia's hands. Garcia was quickly fouled with 27 seconds to go and although he entered shooting 73.7 percent from the line, he missed giving the Eagles new life.

This time DeBord drove to the hoop for the layup, but Andre Thomas denied him recording one of his three blocks on the night, but DeBord got the offensive board and was fouled by Stevens. However, DeBord missed badly on his first free throw attempt, missed the second and Garcia hauled in the board and was fouled. Garcia made up for his previous trip to the line and sank both attempts to ice the game 67-62. He finished with nine points and eight rebounds, while

DeBord led the Eagles with 16 points and eight rebounds, Cobb added 14 points and Ridder finished with 10.