With the Eagles leading scorer Mason Peatling ruled out with a foot injury, freshman forward Kim AIken stuffed the stat sheet in the second half and sparked EWU (7-13, 5-4) to a 82-79 win over Southern Utah (9-10, 4-6) on Saturday.

Aiken scored 17 second half points on way to a 24 point career high. He added 11 rebounds, four blocks, three assists and two steals.

“I think it was the fact that my teammates and everyone on the bench was encouraging me to shoot the ball,” Aiken said. “It wasn’t just me it was everyone on the team.”

Aiken finished the game shooting 80 percent from the field.

Three other Eagles scored in double digits: Jacob Davison (21), Jesse Hunt (16) and Tyler Kidd (15). The win marks the first time this year EWU has a winning record in Big Sky conference play.

“It feels great,” Aiken said. “We’re going to make sure we keep this thing going.”

EWU trailed for the majority of the second half until Hunt backed down a Thunderbird defender, resulting in a wide open layup. The Eagles’ lead grew to nine points, but was eventually chipped away to just three in the final minute.

“We’ve been in that situation and our guys didn’t look rattled at all,” head coach Shantay Legans said. “They played great and they deserve all the credit.”

SUU threw a half court pass with two seconds left and an opportunity to tie, but Aiken stole the pass securing the win.

The Eagles will be back on Reese Court on Monday when they host Northern Arizona at 6 p.m.