Eastern’s 52-50 non-conference win over Indiana State Wednesday came down to the final seven seconds of the game.

Junior guard Henry Domercant blocked a Sycamore shot from behind, grabbed the ball and passed it to junior guard Craig Lewis. Lewis then drove the ball the length of the court making a last-second pass in the lane to sophomore Jesse Mackinson, who made the game-winning layup at the buzzer.

The crowd of 2,000-plus then erupted as Sycamore head coach Royce Waltman threw a tirade on the sideline, demanding the officials review the play on video. But Waltman didn’t get his request, and the Panthers’ went home with their 16th straight win at Lantz Arena, dating back to the 1999-2000 season.

“We practice it every day in practice, three on two, full court, two on one – it’s just getting out and running the lanes, ” Mackinson said of the game-winning play. “Luckily, I was in the right spot.”

Domercant had a team-high 17 points, but shot just 5-for-16 from the floor. The surprise of the night was the emergence of sophomore guard Chris Herrera, who replaced sophomore Rod Henry just two minutes into the game.

“Rod mishandled both possessions that he had, and that’s kind of been our problem to start games,” head coach Rick Samuels said. “We get off to bad starts because we fumble, and we don’t execute.”

Herrera scored a career-high 13 points, shooting 5-for-11 from the field, including two three-pointers. After averaging five minutes per game last season, Herrera spent a team-high 35 minutes on the court Wednesday.

“We’re going to need to play Herrera. We’re going to need to play him, probably start him,” Samuels said.”Chris had played very well in the last two games out in Vegas, and I thought he deserved to get out on the floor.”

The win over Indiana State brought Eastern to an even 3-3 record. Indiana State dropped to 0-4 for the season. And while the two-point win was made in the final second, the Panthers hope it will give them the momentum they need to fulfill an early-season goal.

“Starting with Hartford, we feel like there’s six in a row that we can get,” Samuels said. “We did that last year. We were 0-2 to start. We talked about the six in a row, and we did that.

“Six in a row gives us a chance to win those before we go to Oklahoma, and that’ll be a huge challenge at Oklahoma.”

While the Panthers gutted out the last-second win, they still face the offensive challenge of healing their shooting woes. Eastern shot just 36.5 percent from the field Wednesday night.

“Frankly, we’re struggling a little bit offensively,” Samuels said. “We need to work hard to get a good rhythm, to gain some confidence. When shots start going in, we’ll have that and start building on that.”