CHENEY, Wash. – Northern Arizona was one step behind Eastern Washington when it came to boxing out, and the Eagles ability to out-rebound the Lumberjacks resulted in 21 second chance points and a 96-73 victory at Reese Court this afternoon.

"Eastern Washington is a really good ball club that shoots the ball pretty well," said head coach Jack Murphy." In the first half, I thought we stuck to the game plan. Rebounding is what cost us the game and that's unlike us. That's not going to win you many basketball games. We have to get back on Monday and prepare for next week's games at home."

Ako Kaluna continued his stellar play going toe-to-toe with the Eagle big men. Not backing down from a challenge, Kaluna started off hot for NAU hitting four of his first-five shots to net 10 points in the first-seven minutes of the game. Both teams tried their luck from long range with NAU hitting 5-of-10 in the first half and EWU going 4-for-15. Backed by the play of Venky Jois' 11 first half points, the Eagles took a 45-32 advantage into halftime after shooting 52.8 percent from the floor.

Coming out of halftime Kaluna got things going with a bucket down low. The game was essentially a battle of the big men with Kaluna and Jois leading their respective teams. Kaluna recorded 18 points and four rebounds. Eastern shot 58 percent from the floor in the first half and scored 22 points in the paint to propel itself to the win.

Jois finished with a game-high 21 points and eight rebounds. When you add to that Bogdan Bliznyuk's triple-double of 11 points, 14 rebounds, and 10 assists the Eagle's had solid contribution across their roster leading to the victory today. Bliznyuk scored nine of his points in the first half, and used the second half to rebound and dish the ball out.

Yanku got off to a slow start for NAU, but finished with 14 points, six rebounds, and five assists for his 15^th double digit scoring game of the season. Torry Johnson came alive in the second half scoring 12 of his 14 points in the period on 6-for-8 shooting. Marcus DeBerry tallied 10 points and eight assists to round out NAU's top players of the game.

The loss drops NAU to 3-13, 1-4 in Big Sky play, while EWU improves to 9-8, 3-2 to remain undefeated at home this season.

NAU returns home to host North Dakota (Jan. 21) and Northern Colorado (Jan. 23) at the Walkup Skydome next week.

Notes: The last time NAU played at Eastern Washington, Len Springs tied the NAU single-game record in blocked shots with six…Kaluna had 10 points in the first-seven minutes to finish with his 11^th double digit scoring game of the season…Kye de Laveaga finished with six points…Yanku registered his 15^th double digit scoring game of the season…NAU fell to 12-19 all-time in Cheney.