Both games at the Eisehower Gym on Tuesday night showcased nail-biting action. However, there may not have been any need for either game to be so close.

The Ike boys came away with a 53-49 win over the Oklahoma City Storm, while the girls defeated the Storm, 59-48.

For the Ike boys, outside shooting troubles coupled with inexperience against a zone defense kept things tight, while in the girls game it wasn't until the third quarter that the Eagles got things going and pulled away from the visiting Storm.

Boys win despite tough sledding
No win has come easy this season for the Eagles, and last night was no different as Eisenhower shot 21 for 53 from the field and just 3 for 21 from beyond the arch.

"Every game we have had so far has been like that," Ike head coach Bruce Harrington said, " Credit to our guys for playing good down the stretch. We did some crazy stuff that drives the coach crazy, but we had some great effort the second half."

Ike had to come back from a deficit that was seven points deep in the third quarter to collect the win, needing a 13-2 run to finally get within one point at the 3:08 mark in the third after a Dominique Pierre bucket made the score 35-34.

Ike would close the third quarter on a 5-0 run to take a two-point lead into the final quarter.

From there, the lead changed hands twice before Ike was able to get a 6-1 run over 3:32 in the middle of the period, giving Ike a 45-41 lead it would not relinquish.

Ike could have boosted its lead even more, but six missed foul shots in the fourth quarter kept the Storm hanging around.

"I thought we played a lot better the second half," Harrington said.

Much of the first-half hole came from an inability to work well against a zone defense. As the Storm stood in a 2-3 zone for most of the first half, the Eagles failed to penetrate and kick to the outside shooters. Instead, the Eagles passed the ball around the perimeter and fired up 3-point shots.

"Right now we have some guys that can make them, they didn't shoot that well tonight, but we had too many people shooting them," Harrington said. "As we go through the season we will learn who will be taking them and who won't. I thought we just stood around that first quarter and a half when they switched to that zone we just just started standing around."

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