Eastern Oregon University's Phillip Malatare (0) drives to the basket Oct. 30, 2021, against Montana Western at Quinn Coliseum. Malatare was named Cascade Collegiate Conference men’s basketball player of the week on Monday, Feb. 21.

LA GRANDE — A rivalry matchup against the Southern Oregon Raiders went down to the wire, but the Eastern Oregon University men’s basketball team secured a much-need conference victory.

Eastern defeated Southern 65-62 behind a stellar performance from Phillip Malatare — the junior led the team with 21 points, six rebounds and three assists.

The Mountaineers started off strong, taking a 29-23 lead in the first half of a low-scoring affair. Eastern played stout defense and held Southern to just 30.7% from the field in the first half, while the Mountaineers were slightly better at 36.6%.

Southern outscored Eastern 39-36 in the second half, but the Mountaineers had a big enough margin to hold onto the victory.

The Raiders cut the lead to 63-62 with just 16 seconds remaining, but freshman Cooper Lumsden converted two free-throw attempts with 11 seconds left to put the Mountaineers up by three. As the game clock expired, Southern’s Tez Allen missed a three-point attempt to secure the victory for Eastern Oregon.

The win improved Eastern’s record to 12-9 on the year and kept the team in the hunt in the Cascade Collegiate Conference standings with a 6-7 conference record. The Mountaineers are currently sixth in the conference standings.

Eastern will host three home games next week, the first of which is a matchup with the College of Idaho Yotes on Jan. 25. Bushnell and Corban will then travel to La Grande for a weekend back-to-back.