Thursday night proved to be a tough matchup for Georgia Southern as they took on the Little Rock Trojans in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Coming into this game, the Trojans were on a 4-game losing streak, 2 of those games being at home. At home is where all their wins had come from up until this point, and they defended their home court well.

As the first half started, each team held their own. It wasn’t until Little Rock turned up their offensive efficiency that the first big lead of the game took place.

With around halfway to go in the half, Little Rock, over the span of about 6 minutes, went on an 11-2 run, making the score 20-9, Trojan advantage.

Little Rock’s defense was holding GS’ offense to virtually nothing. Luckily for the Eagles, their defense held their ground during this run as well, as if Little Rock had made all their shots, the lead would have been much larger.

The run was stopped by a junior guard Tookie Brown jumper, which he followed with another layup.

As the half winded down, the Eagles rallied back a little bit, and by the time the buzzer sounded in Little Rock, Arkansas, the Trojans led the Eagles 30-24. At the half, Brown, led the team in scoring with 9 points.

The second half started out hot for the Eagle offense. By the time 4 minutes had gone in the half, they had fought back to be down just 35-31.

Shortly after that, junior forward Shawn O’Connell created his own dunk off an offensive rebound, and the next possession, freshman guard Quan Jackson, hit a three to take the lead, 36-35.

Tookie Brown continued to score and keep the lead out of range for the Trojans. The biggest Eagle lead of the game came with about 2 and a half minutes left in the game after a foul on Quan Jackson.

Jackson hit both free throws to extend the lead to 58-49.

As the game came to an end, Shawn O’Connell put up another dunk and a lot of free throws were taken.

To end the game, Little Rock hit a three at the buzzer, but it was too late, and GS won their seventh conference game, 67-61, keeping them in third place.

Star player, Tookie Brown, put up another stellar performance, scoring 19 points on 5 of 9 shooting. Senior guard, Mike Hughes, also scored double-digits, scoring 14 points in the win.

Shawn O’Connell had another impressive performance off the bench, coming 1 point and 2 rebounds short of a double-double in just 19 minutes of play.

In most stats, Little Rock performed better than GS. However, there was one stat that highly contributed to the Eagle victory, turnovers. The Trojans nearly doubled the Eagles in number of turnovers with 17.

The Eagles’ next game is against neighboring Arkansas State in Jonesboro, Arkansas on Saturday. The game will take place at 8 PM and can be viewed on ESPN3 or listened to on Georgia Southern Sports Network.