SWAC season coming down to the wire

This archived article was written by: Jeremy Jones

Two weeks ago, the Eagles took a trip to Twin Falls, Idaho to take on the College of Southern Idaho.   Going into the weekend games, the Eagles were in sixth place in the region while Southern Idaho was in a battle at the top of the leader board with Snow, SLCC, and Dixie.
The game Friday night was never very close.   Southern Idaho jumped out to an early lead and took control of the game.   After that, they never looked back.  It was 40-25 at the half and the onslaught continued in the second half.   The final score was 93-67.  
When asked about the game, Eagle Head Coach Bryan Zollinger said, “Overall, we were really disappointed that game.   We found very little positive about the game.   We didn’t even look like ourselves out there.   We had really low energy and we didn’t compete like we usually do.”
The Eagles were lead in scoring by Chris Lang with 14, but he was the only player who managed double digits.   Southern Idaho, on the other hand, was firing on all cylinders offensively.   They had six players score in double digits, lead by Schafer Jackson with 21.
The game the previous night seemed to wake the Eagles up a little bit for their next game.   The game was much more competitive and the score was closer throughout.   After a seesaw battle in the first half, Southern Idaho took a two-point lead into the locker room at halftime.
The game remained close throughout the second half until CSI built a small lead late in the game.   According to Zollinger, Southern Idaho was able to make some clutch free throws down the stretch to ice the game.   Zollinger explained, “We were able to put their worst free throw shooters on the line, but they stepped up and hit some big ones late.   We had some chances ourselves, but we weren’t able to convert them.”
The Eagles were hurt worst by their shooting percentages.   They shot 31% for the game while Southern Idaho shot 41%.   The Eagles also put up a lot of three-point attempts, but only connected on 7 out of 27.   The free throw percentages were almost exactly the same, but Southern Idaho attempted nine more and connected on six of those.
The Eagles were led by Casey Iverson, who led all scorers with 20 points.   Steve Williams also scored 11 points in the game.   Southern Idaho was led by Aking Elting who also had 20.
This weekend, the Eagles have their last conference games before going into the conference tournament.   They are at home to face conference rival SLCC.   With two wins and a little bit of help, SLCC could win the conference and earn the right to host the conference tournament.   However, if the Eagles can get two wins of their own, they move into fifth place in the conference, passing North Idaho College, who fell twice to Dixie this past weekend.   In the Eagle’s favor, they beat SLCC in Salt Lake in both games earlier this year.
Right now, Snow College is in control of first place, but they have a tough weekend ahead of them as they travel to Twin Falls to face Southern Idaho.   If Snow wins both games, they win the conference outright.   But if they split, there will be a tie between Snow, Dixie (assuming Dixie beats Colorado Northwestern twice) and potentially SLCC, depending on how the games go here in Price.   There are still a lot of things left undecided in the SWAC, but this weekend will decide everything.