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By PAUL DELANEY
Staff Reporter 

Eastern women run into roadblock in Montana

Eagles wrap up home schedule; to honor Williams, Nelson Saturday versus Weber State

 

Last updated 3/5/2015 at 2:46pm



The road had been reasonably smooth for the Eastern Washington women’s basketball team this season.

After last week’s trip — with a pair of 10-point losses 63-53 at Montana State and to Montana, 69-59 — the operative word is “had.”

Prior to last week, Eastern had won four of six Big Sky contests on the road. They counted one of their biggest program wins ever, a Dec. 22 victory, 67-56 at Florida and were 7-5 away from Reese Court.

But their six-game Big Sky Conference winning streak, and hopes of a regular season title became road kill. Eastern slid to 10-6 in conference play (17-10 overall) and handed Montana the title, and host role in next week’s conference tournament.

The weekend games were opposing bookend efforts.

Thursday at Bozeman, the Eagles trailed 51-33 with 8 minutes, 41 seconds remaining, but a 16-2 run over the next six minutes got them to within 53-48.

At Dahlberg Arena in Missoula on Saturday, Eastern led early, 23-14 with 8:03 to go in the half, but the Grizzlies closed out the half with a 19-6 run that delivered them a 33-29 halftime lead. While they would get back to within two at 33-31, Eastern would never see the lead.

“I thought our effort and energy were really good, especially to start the game,” EWU head coach Wendy Schuller said. It seemed like we didn’t come out with that same energy to start the second half and we dug ourselves a tiny hole and you can’t do that against a team like Montana.”

Eastern shot just 34.4 percent from the field and 3 of 15 from 3-point range. Montana (14-3, 21-7) hit 44.1 percent. Another critical stat was Montana’s 45-35 edge in rebounding, 14 offensive boards that led to 17 second chance points.

Freshman Delaney Hodgins led the Eagles with 19 points while sister, junior Hayley, added 14, the only two Eastern players in double-figures. Senior Melissa Williams saw her streak of four consecutive double-doubles fall just short, scoring nine points and grabbing eight rebounds.

Hayley Hodgins’ 22 points, 18 in the second half, were not enough to counter senior Lexie Nelson being shutout in her 36 minutes for the first time in her EWU career. Williams had a career high with 17 rebounds, plus 16 points, her fourth straight double-double.

The Eagles shot just over 33 percent from the field, its worst numbers of the year in Big Sky play. Eastern, the league’s best 3-point shooting team, connected on just two from long range. They turned the ball over 18 times with MSU enjoying a 23-12 edge in points off of those turnovers.

“It certainly felt good to see the team show some resiliency despite the deficit,” Schuller said. “It took a lot of guts to come back like that.”

Eastern closes out regular season play with games today (March 5) at 6 p.m. versus Idaho State (8-8, 13-14) and then honors Williams and Nelson on Senior Day, Saturday at 2 p.m. against Weber State (6-10, 11-16).

Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.

 

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