DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - The sixth-ranked Embry-Riddle Eagles followed up one of their worst defensive outings of the year on Tuesday at Thomas with the best defensive effort of the season at home on Thursday night, holding Johnson & Wales to just 43 points in a decisive 62-43 win. The Eagles (21-4, 10-3) took a 15-point lead into the halftime break and never allowed the Wildcats (12-12, 4-9) within seven in the second period en route to their 21st win of the 2013-14 season.
Embry-Riddle remained in second place in The Sun Conference standings, one game behind St. Thomas (11-2) and tied with Southeastern (10-3), while Northwood (9-3) is a half of a game back.
The Wildcats scored the first eight points of the contest thanks to a three-point play by Ricardo Saurez, a trey from Jumaoke Smith and a jumper in the paint from Ralph Nin. However, the home team responded with an 11-4 run, capped by a
Dalton Barnes layup with 12:04 on the clock the cut the deficit to 12-11.
Jason Powell found
Daniel Kiesling open in the corner for a triple with 10 minutes left in the first, and the sophomore buried the long range shot to give ERAU its first lead of the night at 16-14. The Eagles, who finished the first period on a 23-5 run got another three-pointer from Kiesling and five straight points from
Hudson Cadet to go up 25-19 before Kiesling hit his final three and Barnes made a runner in the paint with six seconds left to account for the 34-19 halftime score.
JWU was able to cut the lead to 36-29 on a Nin layup with 16:33 left in regulation, but the Eagles were able to hold off a major Wildcat run with triples from
Reed Ridder and
DeForest Carter, as well as some points in the paint from Cadet and Barnes, the latter, giving ERAU a 47-35 cushion with 9:55 on the clock.
Neither team would score for more than four minutes until Mack Scott converted a layup with 5:44 left, but the Eagles outscored the visitors 16-6 over the final five minutes to cement the win.
The Eagles shot 40-percent from the floor and 25-percent from long range, but a 46-36 rebound advantage, 11 second chance points and 12 points off turnovers, combined with a defensive effort that held JWU to just 31-percent field goal shooting was enough for ERAU's 10th Sun Conference win, the most since 2010-11 for Embry-Riddle.
Carter finished with 12 points to lead all scorers while Kiesling was the only other Eagle in double figures with 10 points. Barnes scored eight points and recorded nine boards, three assists and four steals in 32 minutes.
ERAU next takes the court on Saturday, Feb. 8 at Southeastern in a top-25 battle with the Fire that is slated for a 7 p.m. start.
