WILLIMANTIC, Conn. – The Castleton University men's basketball team dropped a Little East Conference contest on the road on Saturday evening, falling 69-40 to Eastern Connecticut State.
 
The Spartans drop to 3-19 overall this season and 0-12 in LEC play while ECSU improves to 10-12 overall and 7-6 in league play. Eastern hit 13 threes in the contest, shooting 43.5 percent overall on the day. Castleton shot 32.0 percent with three threes. The Warriors had a 40-31 edge in rebounds and 9-0 edge in second-chance scoring.
 
John Walsh scored a team-leading 11 points for Castleton, while Tray Wright chipped in seven and Justin Schwarzbeck, Carter Mackey and Jordan Hunt added six points each. Mackey and Mu Moore had eight rebounds each, while Mackey had a pair of blocks as well.
 
Jalen Williams and Tyreice Woods were the double-digit scorers for the Warriors, tallying 15 and 12 points, respectively. Williams tied Quinton Lott for a game-high nine rebounds and led all players with five assists.
 
Eastern began the game on a 14-0 run before Castleton bounced back with seven points in a row—five of which came from Walsh. Eastern Connecticut countered with seven unanswered to push its lead back to 14 points, 21-7. The two sides battled back-and-forth for a five-minute stretch, but Eastern closed the half on a 6-0 run to take a 35-15 lead into halftime.
 
Woods hit a pair of threes out of the break for Eastern to extend the lead to 41-15 before a 6-1 stretch by Castleton stopped the bleeding. The two sides battled back-and-forth the remainder of the way, neither side scoring more than two unanswered field goals the remainder of the way as ECSU held on for the 69-40 win.
 
Castleton returns to action at 7 p.m. Wednesday night with a road game at UMass Boston.