Men's basketball team hands No. 2 Daytona State first loss of season

The Eastern Florida State College men's basketball team handed Daytona State College its first loss of the season Saturday evening in a Citrus Conference game.

The No. 21 ranked Titans defeated the No. 2 ranked Falcons 94-88 in Daytona as Eastern Florida State College improved to 4-1 in the conference with the win.

Eastern Florida State College came out firing as Luca Colceag opened the game with a 3-pointer and Matija Zuzic hit two quick ones as the Titans had a 10-point lead within the first six minutes.

An Andrija Bukumirovic basket with just under six minutes left in the first half increased the lead to 20 and would keep it there for much of the rest of the first half.

Up 48-25 at halftime, the Titans continued to hit shots early in the second half.

But Daytona State College would begin to make a push, cutting it to 14, 57-43 but Emondrek Erkins-Ford made a basket, grabbed a rebound on a Daytona miss and hit another shot to push it back to 18 with 12:36 left.

Daytona's Josue Grullon had his best game of the season, scoring 34 of his game-high 39 points in the second half as the Falcons scored 63 points in the second half, steadily cutting into the lead. Daytona State cut it to under 10 with 1:09 left and began fouling the Titans to try and complete the comeback and did cut the lead to six at one point, but Eastern Florida State College hit enough free throws down the stretch to pick up the win.

Bukumirovic finished with 22 points and eight rebounds while Owen Aquino recorded his sixth double-double of the season, finishing with 19 points and 10 rebounds. Carlos Cortijo had 12 points while Erkins-Ford finished with 11 and Cortijo had 10 in the win.

Eastern Florida State College has won four in a row and are 16-3 overall. They will travel to Miami Dade College on Tuesday evening for a conference game with the Sharks. The game will tip off at 7 p.m. in Miami.