Box Score WHEELING, W.Va. – The Golden Eagles would hang on to defeat Wheeling Jesuit at the McDonough Center 64 – 56 Monday night. UC's Xavier Humphrey  hit four 3-pointers and made critical free throws to help UC hold on to the eight point victory. Humphrey's 34 points is a season high and was one point off his career mark set last season.

The Golden Eagle defense forced 11 turnovers in the first half and held Wheeling to 15 points on six of 24 shooting. Eight different Golden Eagles found the net as Humphrey led UC with eight points and Aleksander Kesic added six points and five rebounds in the first half as Charleston would take 27 – 15 lead into the half.

Points were hard to come by as UC shot just 31 percent from the field in the first 20 minutes. UC got out to a small lead at 11-8 with 11:22 left and a Kesic slam dunk extended UC lead to six. All night Charleston's defense continued to make the Cardinals unhappy on the offensive side of the ball forcing 19 total turnovers on the night. Tino DiTrapano's floater with 4:00 minutes left pushed the UC lead to nine. Kesic used his size to work the paint to cap a 14 – 2 run by Charleston and grab a12 point lead heading into halftime.

Humphrey came out firing in the second half hitting back to back three pointer's growing UC's lead to 18. The next few minutes created points for both teams and as they baskets and Wheeling's Eric Siefert  cut the deficit to 13 with just under 12 minutes left. Humphrey and Kesic responded and pushed the lead back out to 19 at 48-29 with 7:00 remaining.

Wheeling followed with a  9 – 0 run to cut the lead to 10 with 3:45 on Siefert's three from the corner. Charleston went to the charity stripe with the bonus at just over four minutes left but could not capitalize as they were just 11 of 24 down the stretch allowing the Cardinals to chip away at the lead. Wheeling's Tim Goff offensive rebound and put back cut the lead to 8 with just 2:11 left. Not to be forgotten was Humphrey who would extend the lead to 12 with just 1:34 left when he drained a three pointer that all thought would wrap it up.

However, Steve Bridgeman's 3-pointer made it a 2 possession game with just 53 seconds left and Charleston hanging to a 58-52 lead. Free throws by Wheeling's Justin Fritts cut it to four but Charleston's Baptistie Boucharel stole the ball from Bridgeman and got it ahead to Humphrey who got fouled and made clutch free throw with 31 seconds remaining to put UC up six. With Wheeling needing a three Humphrey again stepped up big and stole the ball from Fritts and made two more free throws to make it a critical three possession game.  Charleston withstood the frantic Cardinal comeback to hold on to the 64-56 win and their first MEC win of the season.

With the victory the Golden Eagles improved to 4-1 on the season and evened up their MEC record to 1-1.

Siefert led Wheeling with 17 points and nine rebounds while Fritts added 13 points for the Cardinals. UC was able to get a double-double from Kesic as he had 12 points and 11 rebounds.

UC will return to action after nine days off to take on Fairmont State on December 5^th at Eddie King Gym in Charleston with tip off slated for 7:30pm.