By Ryan Oppenheimer

EUGENE, Ore. — The Bushnell Beacons men’s basketball team was fun to watch as per usual this season, holding on for a 92-89 victory over the Eastern Oregon Mountaineers Friday night.

The star of the night was Kaden Sand, whose 24 points were punctuated with an explosive throwdown in the first half. Sand and Stevie Schlabach (27 points) put on a show, combining for 51 points on 18/26 shooting. But it was Sand who took home the Player of the Game award as of a result of his stellar play near the game’s end, which included taking a gutsy charge.

Overall, the Beacons shot a red-hot 31/52 on field goals. They never found a rhythm from 3-point range (6/19 3FG), but they didn’t need to, instead making a living down low (42 points in paint) and behind the stripe (24/31 FT).

The Mounties trailed by more than 3 points for the majority of the game, but they stormed back in the final minutes. Down 8 with 38 seconds remaining, their full-court pressure forced Kaden Sand to throw an errant inbounds pass into the bottom of his own hoop, leading to a Mounties three-pointer. After they played the intentional fouling game and Schlabach missed a free throw, AJ Huddleston (23 points, 5/6 3FG) converted a wild four-point play to cut the Beacons’ lead to 2. Another Schlabach miss at the line gave Eastern a chance to tie it with a three at the buzzer, but Bushnell’s aggressive trap forced an air ball and secured the win.

The win moves Bushnell to 9-5 on the season and 6-2 in CCC play, keeping them firmly in the mix of the six competitive CCC teams. They are now in a three-way tie for fourth place. Meanwhile Eastern Oregon drops to 4-11.

The Beacons return to action at the Morse Center Saturday at 5 p.m., when they host the defending national champions, the No. 5-ranked College of Idaho Yotes (12-2, 7-1 CCC). It will be a strength-on-strength matchup of Bushnell’s conference-leading offense against the Yotes’ conference-leading defense.