CHENEY, Wash. – The Eastern Washington University women's basketball team is officially in the win column after a 66-45 victory over Eastern Oregon inside Reese Court on Wednesday evening (Nov. 14). The Eagles had three players in double figures and forced 31 turnovers en route to their first victory of the season.
 
"I thought we came out with great defensive energy in the second half. We're doing a lot of things that we've been working on and that I ask the team to do. We kept the intensity up and had great effort tonight. There were breakdowns and missed opportunities, but when you can be active on both ends of the court and play as a team defensively, you'll force teams into turnovers," said head coach Wendy Schuller. "We have to make more baskets and I wasn't pleased with the way we shot the ball tonight. We got good looks and open shots from three-point range, but we need to be better in terms of knocking them down. We shared the ball and found each other a lot better than we did the other day."
 
Eastern Washington opened up the scoring with a 12-0 run in the first quarter and didn't allowed Eastern Oregon to put any points on the board until the 4:44 mark. The Eagles were scrappy defensively, forcing 11 turnovers. EWU shot 10-for-21 for the field on 47.6 percent shooting to take a 13-point lead after one quarter.
 
Alissa Sealby nailed her first of two three-pointers to open up the second quarter, but the Eagles struggled from the field and only shot 21.4 percent. Despite holding onto a double-digit lead throughout the second quarter, the Mountaineers were able to shoot over 40 percent as the Eagles took a 32-26 lead into the locker room.
 
The Eagles turned up the pressure in the third quarter and used a 17-2 run to lead by as many as 22 points. Uriah Howard scored seven third quarter points to help Eastern Washington shoot 41.2 percent to lead 53-36 after three quarters of play.
 
EWU held on to its 20-point lead for the remainder of the game, making three three-point field goals in the fourth quarter to take the 66-45 victory for the first win of the season.
 
WIN-LOSS RECORDS: Eastern Washington improves to 1-1 overall. Tonight's game was an exhibition for the visiting NAIA member Eastern Oregon, who sit at 1-2 on the young season. The series record now moves to 4-0 in Eastern Washington's favor.
 
TOP PERFORMANCES: Uriah Howard led the way with 16 points on 7-for-16 shooting. Violet Kapri Morrow followed with 14 points, her second game in double figures. Alissa Sealby rounded out the double-digit scoring with 11 points to tie a career-high.
 
Morrow also led the team with seven rebounds, while Howard and Jessica McDowell-White each pulled down six. Howard led the team with four assists. Morrow, Brittany Klaman and McDowell-White each had three steals.
 
KEY STATS: Eastern Washington scored 25 points off of 31 turnovers and 17 steals, but committed 17 turnovers themselves. Eastern Oregon outrebounded the Eagles 37-to-34.
 
As a team, Eastern Washington shot 38.5 from the field (13-35), 25 percent from three-point range (8-for-32) and 80 percent from the charity stripe (8-10). Eastern Oregon shot 36.4 percent from the field as a team, including 69.2 percent from the free throw line (9-13).
 
UP NEXT: The first road trip of the year awaits the Eagles on Saturday, Nov. 17 as they take on BYU in Provo, Utah for a 1 p.m. Pacific time tip. Eastern Washington returns home a week from tonight to host Utah at 4:05 p.m. For single-game and season tickets, visit GoEags.com/tickets.