The UC Davis men’s basketball team gave Eastern all it could handle defensively, with a lot of screens, but at the end of the night the Aggies emerged victorious beating the Panthers 63-61 Thursday night in Lantz Arena.

Dylan Chatman helped stir a second-half comeback for Eastern, after taking a moving screen by an Aggie player, following a layup by forward Luke Piotrowski.

Three possessions later he hit a three pointer to bring the Panthers within one, 51-50, after the Panthers trailed by as many as 10, at 45-35.

“I didn’t expect that screen,” Chatman said. “I was trying to give them something different because I was jumping to one side and giving them the lane, I played straight up, and that’s when he made the pick and fouled me.”

Corey Hawkins increased the Aggies lead to three with four seconds remaining.

Chatman soared through the defense and shot a free throw line jumper, which missed, as the clock expired.

“I kind of flipped when I shot it,” Chatman said. “It wasn’t a set play, we were just trying to get the best shot we could, plus we were out of timeouts.”

Even though Chatman wasn’t pleased with the last shot, Eastern coach Jay Spoonhour was.

“I was OK with it, Dylan had more time than he thought he did,” Spoonhour said. “That’s what you want to do though, you want to take it and attack.”

Spoonhour also said that the Panthers’ defense played fine, but was slowed by difficult matchups.

“Oh, it was all right,” he said. “There’s a lot of guys that had a hard time playing because UC Davis had five guys who could make plays and put the ball on the floor, so there were some lineup problems. I was glad to see Trae (Anderson) play well. He needs to get a little stronger, around the goal probably.”

Junior forward Trae Anderson was the Panthers’ leading scorer and rebounder with 16 points and nine rebounds.

Chatman followed with 15 points and three rebounds.

Anderson said the Panthers need to communicate better on defense, especially when facing a team that screened as much as UC Davis did.

“A lot of times we lost our man, and couldn’t recover,” Anderson said. “We need to communicate on defense.”

Next for Eastern, is the Emerald Coast Classic, where the Panthers play at 4 p.m. Sunday at Cincinnati and then at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Creighton.

Blake Nash can be reached at 581-2812 or banash@eiu.edu.