The AU men’s basketball team extended its win streak to four games after a dominating 66-49 win over Holy Cross on Saturday in Bender Arena. The Eagles started the game on a 12-0 run, and led by 24 at the half (42-18).
In his first collegiate start, freshman guard Jacob Boonyasith scored a career-high 17 points for the Eagles (12-9, 6-4 PL), shooting 5 of 10 from behind the arc. Junior guard Sa’eed Nelson added 15 points and nine assists, while senior guard Larry Motuzis scored 11 points and brought down eight boards. Jehyve Floyd finished with 16 points and seven rebounds for Holy Cross.
With sophomore forward Sam Iorio and junior guard Marvin Bragg both still out due to injury, head coach Mike Brennan turned to Boonyasith for the start, who had only been averaging just over 10 minutes per game coming into the match.
“[Boonyasith] can make shots, he can extend the defense...and we’re gonna need him there to continue to improve in those areas,” Brennan said.
On his team’s performance, Brennan said that “when you’re scoring and getting stops, it creates a little momentum.” He said that his guys “came out aggressive” and “did the things we practiced.”
The Eagles have continued to play strong defense throughout this four-game win streak, which hasn’t happened for the team since the end of the 2015-16 season.
“More guys have been locked in, knowing what the roles are, and defensively I think we’ve done a great job shutting teams down,” Motuzis said.
With the win, AU moved up to third place in the Patriot League standings with eight games left in the regular season.
“To keep this win streak going and win the next game is the mindset. Towards the end of this season, we’ve felt pretty confident that we are one of the better teams in this conference, if not the best, and now that things are finally coming together, there’s more motivation for us to go harder and stay locked in,” said Motuzis.
AU will travel to Navy for an evening game on Wednesday before returning home to Bender Arena to face Army West Point on Feb. 9 at 2 p.m.
