HARRISONBURG, Va. – Host Eastern Mennonite University used a late first half run to fuel an 81-59 ODAC men's basketball victory over Shenandoah Wednesday evening.

EMU (12-8, 5-6 ODAC) broke open a tie contest with an 11-2 spurt to finish the first half and pull away from the Hornets (3-17, 0-11).

SU had tied the game at 24-24 on a pair of Jared Carithers free throws with 4:45 remaining, but other than a Bryce Mitchell layup 70 seconds after Carithers' two foul shots, was held scoreless for the remainder of the stanza.

Shenandoah missed five attempts from the field and committed one turnover during that span.

The Royals expanded the lead out to 11 points by the 17:11 mark of the second before SU reeled off a run of its own to get back into the game.

Sophomore Xavier Alston this rally going with a layup at 16:41, which started an 11-3 run over a span of 1:59 to bring the Hornets to within three at 44-41.

Unfortunately for coach Rob Pryor's squad, Eastern Mennonite scored nine of the game's next 10 points to reassert total control of the contest.

The lead remained between 13 and 19 points for the majority of the remaining time before EMU finished the game on a 13-4 run to provide the final margin of victory.

Carithers paced SU with 13 points with Mitchell, Alston and Sharif Almulla all adding 11.

Andrew Thorne had 20 points for Eastern Mennonite.

EMU also owned a 46-31 advantage on the glass.

Shenandoah continues this road trip with a 2:00 Saturday game at Guilford.

###