Eastern Washington head coach Wendy Schuller got to bring home the Dam Cup trophy following the Eagles' basketball victory last Saturday. The trophy, which EWU has won two out of the last three years features athletic competition between Eastern and Portland State.
Eastern Washington stayed in the hunt for a Big Sky Conference women's basketball regular season title last week, and did so on the road.
They kept their place in what appears to be another neck-and-neck race to the finish by scoring a come-from-behind 80-79 victory last Thursday at Sacramento State and a 77-63 win at Portland State.
The Eagles have won four straight games and improved to 8-4 in conference play, 15-8 overall, and trail league leader Montana (10-3) heading into home games at 6:05 p.m. Feb. 19 versus Southern Utah (5-7, 12-10) and Northern Arizona (7-5, 11-12), Feb. 21 at 2:05 p.m.
Trailing 77-73 with 2 minutes, 13 seconds remaining Thursday, the Eagles outscored the Hornets 6-2. The rally was built on a pair of made free throws from Delaney Hodgins and field goals from Jade Redmon and Hayley Hodgins - her winning basket coming with just 17 seconds to play on a put back.
In that same timespan Sac State missed a pair of layups and three 3-point tries, two in the final 15 seconds.
Delaney Hodgins blocked a 3-point try out of bounds by Brianna Burgos on Sac State possession with nine seconds to play. Then senior Melissa Williams came up with a steal with four seconds remaining. She would miss the front end of a 1-and-1, but the Hornets' desperation half-court 3-point try from Takara Burse fell short as the buzzer sounded.
"A number of players made big plays down the stretch both offensively and defensively," EWU head coach Wendy Schuller said. "Jade (Redmon) came up huge a couple of times and Hayley (Hodgins) was all over the place and hit some big shots down the stretch."
Junior Hayley Hodgins' game-high 27 points left her with 1,000 career points. She added 10 rebounds for a career-first double-double. Sophomore Redmon had 16 and freshman Delaney Hodgins added 14, a perfect 6 for 6 at the free throw line.
Eastern shot 51.7 percent from the field and held Sac State to just 33 percent. Another notable edge in favor of the Eagles were points in the paint - by a 46-32 margin - a missing element in a recent losing streak.
"A lot of our big plays came on the defensive end, and I thought we did a good job of locking down Sacramento State, who is such a good offensive team," Schuller said.
Eastern has now defeated Sacramento State in five of its last six trips to California.
The trip home netted not only the win over Portland State that completed the weekend sweep, but also gave EWU a victory in the Dam Cup competition in two of the last three seasons.
It was a dominant effort where the Eagles led the final 37 of the game's 40 minutes. Williams gave Eastern a 7-6 lead with 16:29 to go in the first half. It began a 14-2 run and the Eagles never looked back.
Williams paced four Eagles in double figures with 20 points. Senior Lexie Nelson and Redmon both had 13 points. Hayley Hodgins added 11 points.
The Eagles had their second consecutive game where they were dominant down low, out scoring the Vikings 40-22 in the paint.
For the second consecutive game the Eagles shot well - 48.4 percent from the field - and defended too, holding the Vikings to just under 40 percent.
"Everyone did their job today, and I thought we were very efficient and were especially good defensively," Schuller said.
Portland State drops to 1-12 in conference play and 3-21 overall.
Six games remain in the regular season and Schuller said she likes what's she's seeing from her team.
"We need to continue being really solid defensively and coming up with stops when we need them," Schuller said. "Offensively, we've been a lot better and are sharing the ball and playing to each other's strengths. We need to continue to do those things."
Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].
Reader Comments(0)