BY CHANCE WEEKS-WILLIAMS, Staff Reporter

The Central Washington University men’s basketball team won a nail-biter against Great Northwest Athletic Conference foe Saint Martin’s University 83-77. Nicholson Pavilion was packed and ready to go for Central’s first home GNAC game.

Saint Martin’s University was riding high after a huge win over the No. 11 nationally ranked Seattle Pacific University while Central was coming off an 80-71 win against the Northwest Nazarene Crusaders.

“It’s nice to be back home, I don’t know how else to say it,” head coach Greg Sparling said.

To overcome a slow first couple of minutes the Wildcats exploded on to the scoreboard with an early 14-3 run before the first media time out. The crowd erupted after a huge putback dunk from senior center Kevin Davis.

Central was extremely dominant in the first six minutes on both sides of the ball, leading by as many as 17 points; however Saint Martins did not go down without a fight.

The Saints stormed back to cut the Wildcat lead to four points at the half. Within in the first six minutes of the second half Saint Martin’s tied the game at 49. Despite the resurgence by the Saints in the second half, they never managed to take the lead at any point during the game.

The fans for the Saints travelled well even having a student sections that caused quite a ruckus. However, late free throws by senior forward JB Pillard III and senior guard Mark McLaughlin silenced the Saints fans for the remainder of the game. Central held on to its six-point lead for the last couple of minutes, hitting the free throws off of the intentional fouls.

McLaughlin got into foul trouble early when he collected his third personal foul before halftime, but that did not stop him from having 11 points at the half and finishing with 27 points and five rebounds. Not only was he the leading scorer but he also hit all four  of his shots from downtown and shot 90 percent from the free throw. McLaughlin finished as the player of the game.

“We had a good week of practice, everybody’s really starting to buy in and gel really well as a team,” McLaughlin said.

Freshman guard Jalen Peake posted similar percentages to McLaughlin, shooting 2-2 from behind the arc and 88 percent from the free throw line

“Jalen is not playing like a freshman, he’s playing extremely well right now, with a lot of confidence on the offensive and defensive sides of the ball,” Sparling said.

Peake finished with 16 points and four rebounds including huge free throws that sealed the game.

“They ask a lot of me, and as a player I appreciate that, it helps me improve on my game,” Peake said. “There is so much talent on the team, we have a lot of potential.”

Davis was monumental in the Wildcat’s victory as he had four huge blocks that stopped a late Saint Martin push. Unlike many post players Davis knocked down a rare three-pointer late in the second half.

“All our big guys shoot threes in practice every day and if they are going to sit off him like that he [Davis] has a nice stroke,” Sparling said.

Key mental mistakes by the Wildcats kept this game from being a blowout as Central committed 14 turnovers, while Saint Martin’s only had eight.

“We had a lot of miscommunications,” Sparling said.

The Wildcats look to keep extend its winning streak to three was they take on the Western Oregon Wolves Saturday in Nicholson Pavilion at 7 p.m.