AUBURN – After sleepwalking its way through the first half of Tuesday’s KVAC tilt with Edward Little, Leavitt needed a spark. Brandon Powell was there to provide it.

Powell scored as many points in the first four minutes of the second half (14) as the Hornets did in the entire first half to lead Leavitt to a 59-48 comeback win.

Powell finished with a game-high 19 points. Nate Cousineau scored 10 of his 11 points in the second half for the Hornets. Chipper Houston led EL with 16 points while Troy Barnies added 12.

The Hornets slogged through the first half, unable to get any offense going inside against EL’s 2-3 zone. Down 13-8 after one, Leavitt went without a single field goal in the second quarter and found itself trailing 27-14 at the break.

“We weren’t really moving the ball. To be honest with you, I didn’t really practice for zone. I didn’t think (EL coach) Mike (Adams) would go zone,” said Leavitt coach Mike Remillard. “We just couldn’t get it inside. We weren’t getting any dribble penetration, and in the first half we just looked dazed and confused.”

Leavitt began to snap out of it on a Powell bucket 25 seconds into the third quarter. Following a Jon Pirrucello (10 points) hoop that cut the deficit back to single figures, Powell drilled back-to-back 3s, one from the right corner and one from the left corner, to cap a 10-0 Hornet run.

“Obviously we didn’t recognize where Powell was, and we said all along we can’t let one guy beat us,” said EL coach Mike Adams. “Every game, all year long, one guy has stepped up and had a huge game on us.”

Houston briefly stemmed the tide with a bucket to make it 29-24 EL, but the Hornets quickly tied the game on a Pirrucello putback and a Powell trey. Powell then put Leavitt up for good with his final points of the quarter, another trey from the left corner, with 4:07 left in the period.

“We challenged them to be better than they were doing,” Remillard said. “We started moving the ball much quicker in the second half.”

Leavitt (5-2) also tightened its grip defensively, forcing as many EL turnovers in the first three minutes of the third quarter as it did in the entire first half. The Eddies (1-5) turned the ball over 10 times and managed just five shot attempts in the quarter.

“We shot ourselves in the foot, definitely. We played awful in the second half,” Adams said. “We just couldn’t take care of the basketball.”

As disappointed as Adams was in his team’s second-half play, he was also unhappy with the foul discrepancy between the two teams. Leavitt went to the line 22 times, while EL didn’t shoot a single free throw in the second half. The Hornets held a 35-7 edge from the charity stripe for the game.

“They’re a much more physical team than we are. We fouled. I’m not disputing our fouls so much as I’m sure that they fouled us on the opposite end the exact same way,” Adams said. “Twenty-two free throws in the second half to none has something to do with it. I’m sure we must have been touched somewhere on some shot.”

Powell and Cousineau’s hot shooting forced EL out of its zone, allowing the bigger Hornets to exploit the paint and the offensive boards with Pirrucello. His tip-in and two Dan Berry free throws extended the Leavitt lead to 50-37 midway through the fourth. The Eddies battled back to within six on a pair of Houston hoops inside and a Kyle Philbrook trey, but that was as close as EL would get as the Hornets drained five-of-six from the line in the final 1:07 to seal it.