UE hosts Ball State on Sunday afternoon
Marty Hill had a career night on Tuesday, scoring 16 points while hauling in 6 rebounds, but 10-0 run by Arkansas State in the first half was key to the Red Wolves earning an 87-77 win over the University of Evansville men’s basketball team inside First National Bank Arena.
Hill was 5-of-10 from the field in the game before fouling out with 44 seconds left. Leading the Purple Aces (4-4) was Shea Feehan. He hit six field goals, including four triples, to score 21 points; the final tally was also his career mark. K.J. Riley scored 15. Ty Cockfield scored a game-high 24 points for Arkansas State (3-5).
“I thought we came out and played well offensively, but could not carry that over to the defensive end,†UE head coach Walter McCarty said. “I thought we missed some opportunities out there and have some things to improve on.â€
Evansville knocked down its first three shots, including a pair from Shea Feehan, to jump out to a 7-2 advantage. Arkansas State responded with back-to-back triples to go up 8-7. UE wrestled the lead back by a score of 15-13, but ASU countered with an 8-0 stretch to go up 21-15.
The back-and-forth action continued with a pair of Marty Hill free throws put UE up 29-28 with 4:30 remaining in the first half. That is when the Red Wolves had a 10-0 run that saw them take a 38-29 lead. Jawaun Newton got the Aces back on track with a pair of free throws, but the rally by ASU continued. The fifth trey of the game saw ASU go up 43-31 inside the final minutes. Shea Feehan, who led the team with 10 first-half points, connected on two free throws to trim the ASU lead to 43-33 at the half.
Evan Kuhlman connected on a triple on Evansville’s first possession of the second half to cut the deficit to seven points. His trey came after his squad made 1 of their first 10 tries from outside. Ty Cockfield, who led everyone with 13 points in the opening 20 minutes, responded with his third long range shot to put ASU back up by ten.
ASU’s lead hovered around 10 points, but near the midway point of the latter period, Dainius Chatkevicius hit an and-one to cut the Red Wolves lead back to eight points at 57-49. Just as fast as UE rallied, Arkansas State had one of their own when Grantham Gillard drained two consecutive 3-pointers to push their lead to 67-52, its largest advantage of the game.
Marty Hill connected from downtown 7:07 on the clock to cap off a 6-0 stretch that cut the ASU lead to nine points, but the game was put out of reach three minutes later when Tristin Walley hit his second triple to give Arkansas State a 77-63 lead. Feehan did not let the Aces go down without a fight, hitting back-to-back treys in the final 90 seconds, but the deficit was too much to overcome as Arkansas State took the win by a final of 87-77.
