ARENAC EASTERN - Feb. 15, 2010 - Arenac Eastern needed to be on top of its game if it wanted to beat a heating up Posen squad on Friday.

The Eagles weren't at their best, and the Vikings strengthened their hold on the North Star League's third spot with an 80-54 victory, Posen's fourth in five games.

"We played our worst game," said AE coach Bob Morgan. "Poor shooting and poor defense.

"We played fairly well inthe first quarter and then fell flat the remainder of the game."

The Eagles actually led at the end of a high-scoring first quarter, 20-15, getting scoring from six players. But Posen, which took a 40-29 halftime lead, outscored Eastern 65-34 over the final three quarters to win with ease.

Posen, which started the season at 4-5, started turning things around in late January with a double-overtime victory over Mio and a last-second win over AuGres-Sims. The Vikings blitzed Fairview before losing by 15 to Cedarville on Feb. 3, their closest contest with their state-ranked nemesis in years.

"Posen has improved a lot and they are on a roll," Morgan said. "Hopefully we got (the bad game) out of our system and it doesn't happen again. We can cope with one or two guys that are cold, but when the whole team is that way this is the result."

Graham Morgan was the Eagles' (6-7, 4-6 NSL) lone double-figure scorer with 24 points.

Posen (8-6, 7-3) had Shane Hentkowski with 19 points, Jerome Ciarkowski with 17, David Kerr with 16 and Scott Couture with 12.