E. Washington vaults Montana 78-50 into Big Sky final

<p>BOISE, Idaho &mdash; Jacob Groves scored a career-high 21 points as Eastern Washington routed Montana 78-50 in the semifinals of the Big Sky Conference Tournament on Friday night.</p>
<p>The second-seeded Eagles will meet No. 5 seed Montana State in Saturday’s championship game. Montana State tripped up top-seeded Southern Utah in Friday’s other semifinal.</p>
<p>Groves hit 10 of 13 shots in 27 minutes. Tanner Groves added 18 points for Eastern Washington (15-7). Kim Aiken Jr. added 8 points and 10 rebounds. The Eagles shot 56% for the game (31 of 55) and outrebounded the Grizzlies 40-25.</p>
<p>Eastern Washington dominated the first half and led 44-15 at halftime, holding Montana to a season-low 15 points on 6-for-28 shooting.</p>
<p>Cameron Parker had 15 points for the Grizzlies (15-13). Josh Bannan added 10 rebounds.</p>
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<p>Elements of this story were generated by Automated Insights, <a href="http://www.automatedinsights.com/ap">http://www.automatedinsights.com/ap</a>, using data from STATS LLC, <a href="https://www.stats.com">https://www.stats.com</a></p>