It took every bit of 40 minutes to decide a winner in the Arrowhead Conference opener, but the Eagles soared high and beat the Black Hawk College Braves 63-57.

A hard nosed struggle between two tough teams led to a lot of excitement between the two teams. In the final moments, Keelan Prince of the Braves stole the ball from Alec Schwab and threw a long pass to Jamere Dismukes for what looked like a game-tying layup. But, Michael Murray rushed down the court and blocked the attempt, drawing a foul and sealing the game away with two free throws.

Head coach Tommy Canale had this to say about the game: “Happy to start off 1-0 in the conference and get a W and back to .500. Black Hawk’s a hard to team to play, never beaten them at home. Darren does a great job with his teams, they always play so hard and never quit. I don’t think teams realize that you take one play off and they’re going to get a layup.”

“When it was turned over, my thought was ‘Okay, we’re going to have a tie game, I’m going to call time out and set up a last second play.’ Then, all of a sudden here comes Murray with a huge block. We knew when he got fouled that there was a pretty good chance we get both free throws.”

Murray missed games early in the season with injury.

“Without him, we don’t win the game.”

Murray led the team with 20 points and 7 rebounds. Nathan Ropp had a big game as well with 16 points.

The team’s next game is Thursday Jan. 12th at Kishwaukee College at 7:30 pm.