DURANGO, Colo. -- January 21, 2017 -- Despite getting a season-high 26 points from junior point guard Darius Polley, the Chadron State Eagle men could not recover from a 49-point first half by homestanding Fort Lewis College, falling 87-64 to the 21st-ranked Skyhawks in Durango Saturday night.

"Fort Lewis is a great basketball team," said CSC head men's basketball coach Houston Reed. "In the first half, we weren't ready to battle from a defensive standpoint, which we prepared for. Our guys have to have the mindset, which we tried to coach in the second half, that we don't care what the score is, we have to have pride in how we do things. I was proud of our guys in the second half. We won that battle but it just wasn't enough against this great team."

An emotional Reed reflected on seeing several of his own former players from Otero Junior College now at Fort Lewis succeeding on and off the court.

Fort Lewis shot 19-of-30 from the field and 8-of-9 from the foul line in the first 20 minutes to amass an unsurmountable lead of 29 points, leading 49-20 at the half. The Eagles were able to cut it down to 23 points by the end of the game, particularly owing to a 10-2 run early in the second which came with both teams still at full strength.

Polley's 26 points for CSC included several "and-one" plays - as many as five or six, according to Coach Reed.

The Skyhawks, who scored 87 points in the contest, did so from many different angles, as their leading scorers Rasmus Bach and Daniel Hernandez wound up with 13 apiece, and eight players had three or more field goals in the game.

Chadron State hosts CSU-Pueblo on Friday, January 27, before getting New Mexico Highlands at home on Saturday.