By Randy Whitehouse,Staff Writer

AUBURN – Friday night’s KVAC tilt between Mt. Ararat and Edward Little was about balance – whether the Eagles could maintain theirs before the Red Eddies found thiers.

EL found it in the second half to snuff Mt. Ararat’s modest two-game winning streak with a 66-56 win. “People have been saying all along, As (Troy) Barnies goes, so go the Eddies.’ But we had five, six or seven kids step up big tonight,” EL coach Mike Adams said.

The Eddies (4-4) struggled with the Eagles’ sagging zone defense in the first half, then took advantage of the open outside looks they were getting against it in the second half.

The defense was designed to bother EL’s top scorer, Barnies, inside, and it did just that in the first half, holding the junior to just four points. But then Barnies’ teammates stepped up, with some help from Barnies himself (14 points, 13 rebounds, five assists). Eric Prue scored 12 of his game-high 15 points in the second half, while Ryan Goss added all seven of his points. Derek Doucette (eight points), Cam Leary and Kyle Giguere (seven points each) rounded out a balanced scoring attack.

“After the first five or six games, with the way Troy was playing and the way we were struggling shooting, we knew that teams were going to sag in and play more zone against us,” Adams said. “It’s nice to show that you can’t just come out and play zone against us. Hopefully, that will give us some more looks at man-to-man for the rest of the year.”

The Eagles (2-7), who had won two in a row coming into the game, played their 2-3 and 1-2-2 zones with confidence and rode some fine shooting from Andy Pelletier (10 points) and Aaron Leaver (11 points) to an early 24-18 lead. Adam Paine (12 points, seven rebounds) did just enough in the low post to keep the Eddies honest in their man-to-man, and the Eagles took a 29-26 edge into the intermission.

“We’ve always started out slow,” said Prue, who added seven rebounds on the night. “We just have to hit the gaps (of the zone) and then we’re good.”

Not coincidentally, the Eddies took the lead for good when Goss and Prue found gaps in the zone for back-to-back 3-pointers that gave EL the lead for good at 37-35 late in the third quarter.

“Barnies has a good supporting cast and he gets them involved. The Prue kid absolutely killed us,” Eagles coach Aaron Watson said. “I underestimated him. I had no idea he was that good. They did a great job finding their open shooters, and they hit their shots.”

The Eagles hung around within a possession until about midway through the fourth quarter when a pair of Prue treys highlighted a 10-2 run that put EL up by double digits with just over two minutes left.