By PAUL DELANEY
Staff Reporter
What's that old saying about slow and steady winning the race?
Despite rocketing ahead early after taking the opening tip-off, the Eastern Washington University women's basketball team lost a non-conference game 70-59 to Washington State University last Sunday afternoon at Reese Court.
Both teams spent the afternoon trading big volleys of points, but in the end WSU had the final say and run to pull away from the Eagles.
Eastern jumped out to a commanding 13-0 lead with less than 5-minutes gone in the first half. The Cougars then stormed back with a 21-0 run of their own and took a lead they would never relinquish. The victory gave new WSU coach June Daugherty her first victory with the Cougars after having spent years in Seattle at the University of Washington.
The Eagles (1-2) kept WSU (1-2) scoreless the first six minutes of the meeting between area rivals, racing to a 13-0 lead, including six points from Sydney Benson. That's when the well went dry for the Eagles.
Next it was Washington State's turn to keep Eastern off the scoreboard, as the Cougars totally shut off EWU's scoring for the next six minutes.
The next run belonged to EWU, which scored the next seven points to cut its deficit to 21-20 with 4:45 left in the half. But the Cougars turned it on again, outscoring Eastern 17-2 and put WSU up 38-22 with 1:21 gone in the second stanza.
An 11-1 Eastern run followed to cut the Washington State lead down to six at 39-33. The closest the Eagles came the rest of the contest would be at 47-45 with 11:03 remaining.
Eastern responded to eight straight Cougar points and a 55-45 deficit with a 10-4 run to get to within four at 59-55 with 4:35 left. At that point, however, Washington State put the game away with seven straight tallies.
“We didn't play with the urgency and toughness we needed to,” head coach Wendy Schuller said. “They popped us a little bit and we didn't pop back,” Schuller added.
“We did some things in the second half to get right back in it,” Schuller said. However, the coach said, “When it came time for big stops – I don't know if it's our youth – I don't know what it is,” Schuller said. “We did not understand that OK, we've cut it (the deficit) to four and we need a big stop here.”
Those were the times EWU gave the Cougs, and especially Heather Molzen easy baskets a lot of the time. “She (Molzen) was tough,” Schuller said. “The things she did that we did not do was finish.
Most of WSU's scoring successes today came from Heather Molzen, who hit on 10-of-14 shots and scored a game-high 21 points.
Individual statistical leaders for EWU included Benson (19 points, including 7-of-7 on free throws), Nicole Scott (17 points, including 3-of-6 on three-point attempts) and Katy Baker (12 points).
Last Thursday, Eastern lost a tough game to Nevada 74-68 as a late rally fell short. Kyla Evans continued her simply amazing shooting performances at the beginning of her collegiate career. The freshman led all Eagles with 20 points tonight on 5-of-6 shooting, 3-of-3 from three-point range. She also made 7-of-9 free throws.
Eastern now looks ahead to their trip to Honolulu and the Oahu Classic featuring tough intersectional competition in Akron and Marist.
The Eagles take on the Zips at 2 p.m. Pacific time on Thanksgiving afternoon (Nov. 22) in their opener before facing the Red Foxes at 2 p.m. Saturday. Akron is 1-2 on the season, while Marist is 3-1. The Red Foxes are coming off an NCAA Sweet 16 season and its only loss this season came on the road to No. 16 Ohio State by a narrow 63-57 score.
In Hawaii, Schuller said the Eagles face “two very tough opponents. I just watched film on Akron. They have a couple of really good guards and athletic kids inside.”
“Mairst is an unbelievable team,” Schuller said “They beat Ohio State first round of the NCAA's last year. And I think they were tied or right with at halftime Tennessee in their game in the NCAA's.”
“We're going to worry about them, but first and foremost we have to worry about ourselves,” Schuller said.
Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected]
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