PRICE – Utah State Eastern Men's Basketball lost to the Snow College Badgers 73-62 on Friday in the 2019 Region XVIII Tournament semifinals.

USU Eastern kept it close with the Badgers for 35 minutes of the game until Snow's shooting started to heat up.

That combined with the shooting struggles of USU Eastern paved the way for Snow to grab the victory.

"I think that we played a pretty good defense tonight and we was competing at most part of the game and had a chance to win but in the last five in we shot poorly. We missed some huge free throws and missed some open shots and Snow made three threes to give them a good lead in the final five minutes," said USU Eastern Head Coach Adjalma Becheli.

The Badgers outscored the Eagles 20-13 and shot 12 of 13 from the free throw line in the final minutes of the game.

Freshman guard Blaze Nield finished the game as the Eagles leading scorer with 19 points. Nield also contributed with eight rebounds and six assists.

In his final game as an Eagle, Chase Berry scored 11 points and grabbed nine rebounds with two steals against Snow.

Freshmen Tanner Nygren and Vojtech Ruzek combined to score 14 points off the bench for the Eagles on Friday.

The loss to Snow eliminates the Eagles from postseason contention and puts their final record at 17-15 overall.

After a long season, Coach Becheli says he is proud of the effort his team put forth each game.

"We had a high character group of guys who played hard every game and never quit. We had our ups and downs during the season but was very enjoyable run," said Becheli.

Despite falling short of their goals of winning the conference, Becheli says he enjoyed coaching this year's group.

"Right now we are frustrated because we had a chance to finish our season strong but fall short at the end. I love our players and enjoyed coaching them during the whole season," said Becheli.

USU Eastern Men's Basketball will graduate four players from this year's program and will have a solid group of returners next season.

The team will regroup and return to official practices this October before kicking off the 2019-2020 season in November.

For more information about USU Eastern Men's Basketball camps, news, and future schedules please visit usueasternathletics.com.