Jace Easley said before this week began that he quote on quote "wasn't going to let his team lose 3 games in a row" and fall below 500 in the standings.
Easley along with Conor McCaffrey made their prescense known Wednesday night.
Easley bruised his way to 34 points, 20 rebounds, 4 assists, 6 steals and 7 blocks, and McCaffrey added 15 points and 8 assists as the No.14 Eagles held off Blessed Sacrament 72-64 in the consolation game of the Central Illinois Hall of Fame Classic.
McCaffrey finished 3 of 5 from beyond the arc, and the Eagles (3-2) went 7 of 16 from 3 as a team, as they bounced back from a 71-51 blowout loss to East Peoria in the semifinals to avoid their third consecutive loss.
"Coach told us a good message -- he was right. He said 'If life hits you, the weak are going to back down. They're going to quit,'" McCaffrey said. "The strong are going to respond. They're going to find a way to respond. They're going to find a way to learn from their mistakes and keep fighting. That's why the call us the Eagles. We're always going to fight."
The victory Wednesday night came at a cost though: Drew Dejaynes, who scored 12 points, and added 5 rebounds and 4 assists for the Eagles, hurt his left knee midway through the fourth quarter. Dejaynes was shooting 5 of 11 at the time and had to be helped off the floor by a pair of trainers.
"I don't have anything yet," Our Savior's head coach Todd Dejaynes said.
Max Powers scored 22 for Blessed Sacrament, who committed just four turnovers in the entire game.
"They made a couple more plays than we did and weren't able to get back in the game. That's just how it it goes sometimes. We have to learn from it. Try to get better each day."
There were plenty of subplots to the first meeting of Our Savior's and Blessed Sacrament in 21 years.
Dejaynes grew up around Blessed Sacrament and the teams coaches and assistant coaches all spent plenty of time at the two schools respectively.
Powers hit a couple buckets early on in the third quarter to give Blessed Sacrament a 34-31 lead.
They briefly pulled ahead 42-41 before Blessed Sacrament hit back to back layups. McCaffrey hit a 3 at the other end to give Our Savior's the lead back, and it eventually grew to 50-42 with about 9 minutes going.
When Powers drilled a 3-pointer for Blessed Sacrament, McCaffrey was right there to answer with another for the Eagles. His 3rd 3-pointer pushed the lead to 62-49, the biggest of the game, and McCaffrey hit another mid-range for good measure later on.
"I knew I was kind of off early in the season, hit and miss early on," he said. "so I had to find a way to help the team. I was working extra hours before and after practice. When I made the first one, I felt like I was back. I had that confidence. I'm glad that happened."
THE TAKEAWAY
Our Savior's cleary still isn't at full strength, while Easley and McCaffrey carried the heavy load on their shoulders tonight, it's not a sustainable way of winning, Dejaynes hopefully won't miss a lot of time for the Eagles, he is needed out of the floor.
"We haven't been together in a long, long time, and you know, when it's key pieces -- you're talking about one of the elite backcourts in the LSA CIL that wasn't apart of crunch time," Todd Dejaynes said. "We need to get healthy."
Blessed Sacrament forced the Eagles into 17 turnovers and turned them into 23 points, while Our Savior's only forced four turnovers that led to three points. That disparity was the biggest reason why Blessed Sacrament was able to mount a challenge.