Intramural basketball holds more teams in its league than any other intramural year round. With a lot of teams, come countless competitive games.

The level of competition continues to grow as the intramural season progresses and that showed last night as game after game went right down to the wire.

One particular game stayed extremely close from start to finish when Pike Garnet took on Revolution at 5 p.m.

The teams battled back and forth throughout the game with both teams leading numerous times. The nail-biter ended with Pike Garnet coming out on top by two points. Senior Ryan McNeil attributes the win to good free throw shooting.

“Free throws were big. I thought we were about to lose it. We’d missed a bunch of free throws all game,” McNeil said.

“John (Roemer) stepped up and hit some big free throws at the end of the game and we shot well to close it out.”

Roemer was fouled shooting a three-pointer with less than 20 seconds remaining in the second half and down by three points. He stepped up to the line and knocked down all three shots to tie the game.

Roemer came down and hit another big bucket to give his team a two-point lead. Revolution dribbled back down the court but committed a backcourt violation to give Pike Garnet the ball back with 12 seconds remaining.

Revolution was given another opportunity with five seconds to go to tie the game. After a couple of missed shots, Revolution could not capitalize and Pike Garnet came out victorious, 41-39.

The teams, as well as the officials, seemed pleased with the way games are going this season. First year referee, sophomore Derek Tuchmann, said he is very excited about getting this season underway.

“This is pretty fun, we get some pretty fast paced games a lot of the time,” Tuchmann said.

“It seems like the girls like to foul more than guys. I had to give one girl a technical for throwing some elbows but that’s about it, no other problems.”

McNeil has played in intramural basketball at Eastern before and he also thought the refs have been doing a much better job than years prior.

“I think officials have done a lot better this year actually. When people drive, fouls are being called. Last year there could maybe be five free throws in a whole game,” McNeil said.

With 86 teams in the league, it seems more and more people around campus are staying active and remaining healthy.

“I think there are definitely benefits from having so many teams. It brings a lot of people out here to the rec,” Tuchmann said.

“A lot of people come to support. It’s good for everyone and it gives me a job.”

Chad Grimm can be reached at 581-7944 or ctgrimm@eiu.edu.