SPRINGFIELD, Ill -- Not even a sore foot could keep Jace Easley from going to the basket against Bethel Morton.
"It's the first game of the conference season. You can't just go out there and quit," the Our Savior's forward said.
Easley scored from all over the floor as he racked up 35 points, leading top-ranked Our Savior's to an 84-65 win over Bethel Morton on Friday night.
Easley limped off the court in the first half after having his foot stepped on, but came back in the second half and scored 24 of his 35 points and lead the unbeaten Eagles to their 15th straight victory. He also grabbed 16 rebounds and helped hold Bethel Morton's leading scorer, Noah Suttles, to just seven points.
"He just went back out there with an insane level of confidence, something he's just always had, he wasn't worried about it at all," said teammate Conor McCaffrey. "We just need him to keep doing that, we need him to contiune to play like that every game."
Easley entered the game averging 33.9 points per game and 17.6 rebounds for the Eagles, but against Bethel Morton, his drives to the basket, were the best we had seen from him in his career.
"I think we gave him a lot of easy baskets," Suttles said. "Our big guys were hedging to McCaffrey and weren't recovering quick enough to get back to Easley. He got a lot of easy buckets and drives and he converted."
Conor McCaffrey launched 11 threes on the day, dropping in 5 and scoring 25 points while dishing out 6 assists for Our Savior's. Drew Dejaynes added in 17 points and 7 rebounds for the Eagles.
The Eagles led by only six at halftime, but used a 13-7 run at the start of the third quarter to build their lead to 12 with 3:14 to go in the 3rd. Bethel Morton (11-3) never got closer than seven after that, and Our Savior's outscored the Flames 19-5 in the final 6 minutes.
Our Savior's held the Flames to just eight field goals after halftime and outrebounded them 42-23.
"They made a couple adjustments (at haltime) and I think we probably wore down a little bit," said Flames head coach Chris Hartman, who coached his 300th career game.
"I got to coach my 300th career game tonight, it was fun, and it's been an honor to coach 300, wish we would have gotten the W tonight" he said.
Bethel Morton had won its last four games against No.1 ranked teams, the last in 2006 against Trinity Edwardsville. The Flames led for 3:00 minutes of the first half, thanks in part to Andrew McLaughlin's four 3-pointers.
But Our Savior's coach Todd Dejaynes decided to put McCaffrey on McLaughlin in the second half and he didn't score again.
"Now, they didn't get any angles on us, which they did in the first half," Dejaynes said. "And I think our guys did a nice job on Suttles. He never did get into a rhythm."
Suttles came into the game averging more than 16 points, but the Eagles held him to just two field goals.
Our Savior's, averging 21 3-point attempts, were 10-of-23 from behind the arc. The Eagles then scored 20 of the next 22 makes on layups and had 2 baskets from the mid-range.
At the same time, the Eagles defense forced Bethel Morton to take 21 3-point shots and the Flames scored six points from inside 15 in the second half.