A pair of short-handed teams met Thursday night when the Eastern men’s basketball team played Tennessee-Martin on the road.

The Skyhawks were able to prevail in a low-scoring matchup, beating the Panthers 51-41.

The teams were tied for ninth place in the OVC coming in to the game with conference records of 2-7. Eastern is now 2-8 in conference play after going 2-1 in its first three OVC matchups.

Tennessee-Martin was missing its leading scorer in Cameron Holden, who is averaging 17 points per game, and Eastern was without guard Marvin Johnson, who is second on the team in scoring and leads the team is assists.

Eastern had just seven players available for the second-straight game. Johnson was available for the previous game, but was replaced in this game by freshman Micah Schnyders.

With some high-scorers missing, neither team played very well offensively. The Skyhawks shot just 31.7 percent from the field while Eastern shot only 28.1 percent.

Most of Eastern’s shooting trouble came from three-point range, where the Panthers shot just 3-of-24 for the game.

Neither team got to the free throw line with much frequency, as only 10 free throws were attempted in the game, six by Eastern and four by Tennessee-Martin.

It was also a game of large runs, with Eastern going on an 11-0 run in the first half and Tennessee-Martin ending the half on a 13-0 run, which was then extended to 15-0 to open the second half.

Eastern’s leading scorer in the game was senior guard Deang Deang, who set a new season high with 14 points. It is Deang’s second-straight game in double figures this season as he works his way back from a torn Achilles suffered early last season.

The only other Eastern player in double figures was senior guard Josiah Wallace, who had 11 points on 5-of-19 shooting.

Junior forward Barlow Alleruzzo scored 10 points for Eastern and collected a team-high 10 rebounds.

Two Skyhawks also scored in double figures. Junior forward Jaron Williams scored a game-high 17 points and junior guard Vinnie Viana scoring 11 off the bench.

Eastern plays again Saturday when they take on Southeast Missouri on the road at 5 p.m.

Adam Tumino can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].