Eastern women sweep Big Sky

CHENEY - Second half hot streaks of different sizes helped propel the Eastern Washington women to a pair of Big Sky Conference basketball victories last week at Reese Court.

A 17-8 third quarter put plenty of breathing room between Eastern and Portland State in their 78-49 win, Jan. 9. A similar 27-17 dash out of the break added to Eastern's 34-31 halftime lead in an 89-80 win, Jan. 11 over Sacramento State.

"We have quarter goals, and we held Portland State to 10 in that first quarter," head coach Joddie Gleason said. I think that our other goal was to initiate offense from our defense; we managed to accomplish that all game and especially in the first quarter."

As much as defense played its part, so did an effective offense that delivered 55% shooting from 3-point range at 11-of-20 and 45.8 percent total from the field.

Jaecy Eggers scored a game-high 13 points, a career-high for the true freshman. Peyton Howard finished with 12 points, giving her exactly 1,000 in her collegiate career.

Things were different Saturday vs. the Hornets with a faster pace.

"Sac. St. did a nice job of pushing tempo and we needed to make sure that we matched it, while defending them with urgency," Gleason said. "We accomplished that in the first three quarters, but let them get loose too many times in the fourth quarter."

Five Eagles scored in double figures with a pair of career-best efforts from Ella Gallatin with 23 points and Eggers with 20 points. Howard dropped 18 points, Kourtney Grossman recorded her fourth double-double, recording a game-high 11 rebounds and 12 points while Rachel Harvey added 10.

Former Eagle and grad transfer Jaydia Martin led the Hornets with 23 points.

Eastern (2-2 Big Sky, 6-10 overall) travels to Moscow to play Idaho (3-1, 11-4) on Saturday, Jan. 18, with tipoff at 1 p.m. and part of a doubleheader with the Eastern Washington University men who follow.