Eastern Washington used a big run to open the second half, putting enough distance between themselves and the visiting Central Washington Wildcats and earned an 83-70 nonconference women’s basketball victory Nov. 30 at Reese Court.
The Eagles, 3-2, led just 43-39 at the break but put together a 16-7 run in the opening seven minutes of the second half and withstood one last CWU surge for the victory that began a busy home stretch.
Eastern hosted local rival, Gonzaga, Dec. 3 and will meet St. Martins Friday, Dec. 12 at 11 a.m. at Reese.
Junior Hayley Hodgins led all scorers with 25 points on 10-of-15 shooting. She buried four of her six attempts from three-point range, setting a new season high in the process.
Senior Lexi Nelson added 22 points, burying 5-of-6 triples and finishing a perfect 5-of-5 from the free throw line, surpassing the 1,000-point career mark. Senior Melissa Williams and freshman Delaney Hodgins added 11 points apiece.
After their solid second-half start, which put Eastern up 59-46, the Wildcats (3-2) would close to within seven at 70-63 with 4 minutes, 4 seconds to play. But the Eagles scored the next five and held on. They outscored Central 40-31 in the second half.
“I thought that, when we picked our pressure up a bit in the second half, we were able to pull away the way we wanted to,” EWU head coach Wendy Schuller said. “It’s just a matter of convincing our team to put that pressure on for 40 minutes and not for 15.”
The Eagles shot 51.6 percent in the second half and 49.2 percent for the game while holding Central Washington to 37.9-percent over the final 20 minutes, 44.6 for the game.
Eastern raced off to an 11-1 lead to open play, but NCAA Division II Central rallied with a 17-7 run of their own to tie at 18-18. Central never led but were tied five times in the opening half.
After a 2-0 start the Eagles traveled to Texas where they lost 69-53 to Southern Methodist Nov. 22 and Nov. 25 at Abilene Christian 79-72.
Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].
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