CASTLETON, Vt. – The Castleton men's basketball team outscored Eastern Connecticut in the second half on Saturday, but the first-half deficit was too much to overcome as the Spartans dropped a Little East Conference contest 58-48 to the Warriors at Glenbrook Gym.
 
Castleton (3-9, 0-4 LEC) shot 31.3 percent from the field (15-of-48) and 29.4 percent from three (5-of-17) in the contest. Eastern Connecticut hit 43.1 percent from the floor (22-of-51) and connected on 11-of-25 from three in the game. Castleton was 13-of-17 at the free-throw line while Eastern hit just 3-of-7 at the stripe. ECSU won the rebound battle 37-30 and turned that into a 10-2 edge in second-chance points. Castleton committed only 11 turnovers, but those turnovers led to 13 points for the Warriors. 12 Warrior turnovers resulted in only three Spartan points.
 
Tray Wright racked up 17 points, five assists and three steals while Jordan Hunt added 11 points in the game. John Walsh scored seven points with five rebounds and Mu Moore added five points and five boards. Moore also had two blocks and three steals on defense.
 
Eastern Connecticut was powered by Dominick Dao, who hit 7-of-9 for three and totaled 26 points in the game. He also had five rebounds and five assists. Rakesh Tibby added 15 points and a team-leading six rebounds off the bench.
 
ECSU ran out to a 15-2 lead, hitting each of its first five threes in the game over the course of just four minutes. The lead grew to 30-11 after a 7-0 run later in the half, but Castleton closed the first half on a 5-2 run to make it 32-16 at halftime.
 
The Spartans scored the first five points out of the locker room, with Hunt connecting on a trey and Walsh dropping in a layup for a 32-21 score. Eastern later went on a 9-3 run, dropping in four layups and a free throw around a three from Conner McKearin to stretch the gap to 42-25. Castleton bounced back with an 8-2 stretch, starting with another three by Hunt and ending with made free throws by Wright and Moore. The Spartans worked the deficit back to just nine points after a third three by Hunt with less than eight minutes to play, 47-38. Five straight points by Dao pushed Eastern's lead back to 52-38, and Dao and Thomas Close connected on one more three each in the following minutes to keep Castleton at bay, 58-42. The Spartans kept battling, scoring the final six points of the game to make it a 10-point differential at the final horn, 58-48.
 
Castleton is back on the hardwood Wednesday night at 7:30 p.m. when it travels to Plymouth State for an LEC contest.