Freshman guard Marcus Wallace led Southeast Missouri to a 68-64 win over the Eastern men’s basketball team on Saturday in Cape Girardeau, MO.

Junior guard J.J. Thompson hit a free throw with 4:50 left in the game that gave the Redhawks their first lead. Thompson was a perfect 4-of-4 from the free-throw line.

Junior forward Trae Anderson hit a three-point shot that put the Panthers (14-10) on top by 12 just under half-way through the second half. This was Eastern’s biggest lead of the game.

The Redhawks (11-13) answered Anderson’s shot with a 16-3 run that grabbed their first lead. Wallace led the run scoring seven of his team-high 18 points throughout Southeast Missouri’s scoring stretch.

Wallace shot 6-of-9 overall while he recorded three steals on the night.

“Talk about ‘a star is born’ tonight,” Southeast coach Dickey Nutt said. “He was all over the floor.”

Wallace is averaging 3.3 points per game this season on 40-percent shooting.

The Panthers held on to the lead for almost all but the last five minutes.

“It just felt like we were a step slow,” Nutt said. “Every shot. Every pass. Every defensive play. It just felt like we were in mud.”

Anderson led Eastern with a career night. He scored a season-high 25 points and grabbed 12 rebounds.

Anderson was 9-of-19 on field goals and made six out of 10 attempts at the free-throw line. He leads the team in scoring with 13 points per game this season.

Freshman guard Cornell Johnston scored eight points on 3-of-7 shooting. Johnston added six assists to his Ohio Valley Conference fifth most total of 105.

The Panthers were short on players Saturday due to Illness. Both senior guard Reggie Smith and junior forward Chris Olivier sat out of the Panthers’ 11^th OVC game.

Johnston averages 33.4 minutes of action per game, but found himself on the floor for all but two minutes of the game on Saturday.

The Redhawks are now 5-6 in the OVC and sit in 4^th place of the west division.

Eastern dropped four of its last six games this season. With the loss Saturday, the Panthers now sit in 3^rd place in the west division. Eastern is still three wins ahead of where it sat at the end of last season despite the recent losses.

The loss the Southeast Missouri came in Eastern’s first matchup of a three-game road trip. The Panthers will see both Austin Peay State University and Southern Illinois-Edwardsville this week.

This is the second time the Panthers have seen each opponent. Eastern lost to Austin Peay and beat Edwardsville earlier this season.

The Panthers face Austin Peay at 5:15 pm on Thursday in Clarksville, Tenn.

Jehad Abbed can be reached at 581-2812 or Jaabbed@eiu.edu.