PROVIDENC, R.I. – The Eastern Connecticut State University men's basketball team held Rhode Island College scoreless for five minutes during a 10-0 run midway through the second half that doubled a ten-point lead and lifted the Warriors to a 90-63  Little East Conference win Saturday afternoon at the Murray Center. 

A winner of three straight, the three-time defending LEC regular-season champions took the lead for good when it ran off 11 straight points to break from a 15-15 tie, then doubled a ten-point lead with a 10-0 spurt that pushed the lead to 20, 65-45, with 9:32 left. Eastern (4-4, 2-0 Little East) junior guard Tarchee Brown (Rockville) scored seven of those points – five from the foul line – and junior guard Kendall Marquez (Willimantic) nailed a three-point field goal following an offensive rebound from senior forward Hugh Lindo (Enfield) for the other three points.

Eastern's point total was its highest against RIC since a 94-92 road loss in 1996-97. The Warriors had last scored at least 90 points in a victory over Rhode Island in 1993-94 (101-97) at Providence.

The Warriors had beaten RIC on its home floor three straight times before the Anchormen avenged a 33-point beating at Eastern early last year with a stunning 58-56 victory in the return engagement at Providence last Jan. 30. In that game, Eastern missed 15 of 20 three-point field goal tries and coughed up an 11-point lead which it had amassed  late in the first half.

Brown scored a game and season-high 29 points to move to within 32 of 1,000 in his 60-game career. Freshman point guard Carlos Gonzalez (Springfield, MA) finished with 12 points – seven coming in the opening seven minutes – and junior forward Jacob Collins (Bristol) added ten points, all coming in a span of four minutes when he was inserted with just over six minutes remaining. Collins was perfect on the afternoon, going 3-for-3 (2-for-2 from three-point range) from the floor and 2-for-2 from the stripe.

In Eastern's early -- yet decisive -- 11-point scoring spurt that allowed it to pull away from a 15-15 tie in the first half, sophomore forward Leonel Hyatt (Greenwich) was fouled while dropping in a layup off an inbounds pass from Gonzalez and completed the three-point play with a layup to make it 18-15. Brown then scored three points in 23 seconds when he swished the back end of a two-shot foul and followed with a driving layup to make it a six-point lead with 10:50 left in the first half. Subbed in for Gonzalez moments earlier, sophomore guard Jaysen Nunez (Hartford) knocked down a three-point field goal and sophomore guard Tyrell Arnum (Bloomfield) hit a short jumper on a second chance shot created by his own offensive rebounds to cap the run and make it 26-15 with 9:40 remaining before the break.

Benjamin Vezele led RIC (4-6, 0-2 Little East) with 12 points and eight rebounds.

In one of its best overall games of the year, Eastern shot 50.8 percent from the floor and 73.1 percent from the free throw line, converted nine of 17 three-pointers (52.9 percent), turned the ball over only eight times and forced 19 turnover.

In Miami, Eastern meets Buffalo State Sunday, Dec. 18 at 6 p.m. and Eastern University Monday at 8 p.m.