A long road trip, a late game and a hot-shooting opponent conspired against the Eastern Washington University women’s basketball team as they fell 82-73 to Portland State March 7 in the quarterfinals of the Big Sky Conference Tournament at the Reno Events Center.
The No. 6 Vikings, who made eight straight shots in the third quarter during a game-deciding 23-10 run, advanced to play Idaho in the semifinals. The third-seeded Eagles finished 17-14 and had a four-game winning streak snapped.
“I think at the end of the day, we didn’t defend the way we’ve defended in the games where we have had great success,” head coach Wendy Schuller said. “A lot of times, our offense gets going by what we do on the defensive end. When we were getting stops, we were in good shape.
Uriah Howard led Eastern with a career-high 22 points, Delaney Hodgins scored 15 with Violet Kapri Morrow adding 14 points and Brittany Klaman 13 points.
Eastern led by as many as eight in the first quarter, but eventually trailed at halftime 37-35. The Vikings led by just one when they went on their 23-10 run to take a 64-50 lead with 2 minutes, 9 seconds to play. Portland State led by no less than nine and by as many as 17 in the fourth quarter.
The Eagles had 20 turnovers – including four in the 23-10 run -- leading to a 21-11 advantage for PSU in points off turnovers.
Eastern had been on the road for more than a week, choosing to not return to Cheney after sweeping Southern Utah and Northern Arizona in the final two games of their Big Sky schedule, the last played March 2.
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