POCATELLO, Idaho - For its first Big Sky Conference match of the season, the Eastern Washington University women's soccer team traveled to face Idaho State today (Sept. 24) and conquered a 3-1 victory at Davis Field in Pocatello, Idaho. Maddie Morgan led the charge scoring the first and last goal of the contest, helping EWU secure its first conference win to begin league play 1-0, as they improve their overall record to 3-6.

"First, an enormous amount of credit to Idaho State. ISU head coach Debs Brereton and her staff have an incredibly young team that plays with a ton of energy, plays hard and is totally bought in to their game plan. They put a lot of pressure on us all night long and really challenged us and kept us from getting into any kind of rhythm," said head coach Missy Strasburg, who collects her first Big Sky Conference victory at the helm. "While we struggled to solve challenges in the moment as a team tonight, we got great goals from Maddie Morgan and Maddie Kem, off perfect distributions by Mya Elder-Hammond, Gillian Martin, and Brittany Delridge, respectively. Kelsee Winston was exceptional in goal again tonight and our back five players put in another 90-minute blue collar shift. We got a lot of great minutes from our roster tonight, led by Brooke Flores who had her best performance of the year."

Early pressure from Idaho State would create a few chances for the Bengals in two attempts on goal in which senior EWU goalkeeper Kelsee Winston pushed both shots away from danger. However, it was EWU who dominated over the Bengals with Maddie Morgan being the main attacking threat.

Just after 10 minutes into the match, it was Morgan, the Kennewick, Wash. native, who would break the deadlock after unleashing a piledriver from 25 yards out which flew into the upper seven to give the Eagles an early 1-0 advantage. The goal initially started with a set piece taken by Mya Elder-Hammond who found Morgan with space.  

Eastern Washington then doubled its lead with four minutes left in the first half as freshman Gillian Martin paced past the backline to get on the end of a brilliantly placed ball by Angela Cipriano, as Martin served the ball back across the goal from the end line to find a flying Madison Kem who lunged and poked the ball into the back of the net.

ISU took 10 first half shots but the Eagles stood their ground defensively, blocking multiple shots to relieve Winston of her duties and to keep the goose egg on Idaho State's side of the scoreboard, as the first half would end 2-0 in EWU's favor.

Returning from halftime, both squads would create decent chances on goal, but it would be EWU who proved to be more organized as they would find a third goal in the 55^th minute. With a lot of traffic in the Idaho State goalie box, the ball found the foot of Morgan from a pass by Brittany Delridge who slotted it one-time into the upper seven to take a 3-0 lead.

With under two minutes left in the match, Idaho State would create one final chance that led to an ISU corner kick. The Eagles failed to clear the ball away from danger as the Bengals found space on the wide flank to drive at the Eagle defense and slot one near-post past Winston. As the final whistle blew, the Eagles walked away with a 3-1 away win.

WIN-LOSS RECORDS: EWU picks up its first Big Sky Conference victory of the season and improves to 3-6 overall with a 1-0 league record while Idaho State falls to 0-10-1 overall and 0-1 in league play.

Additionally, the Eagles improve their all-time series record to 12-12-1 against the Bengals with a six-match winning streak. Furthermore, in the last five matches, EWU has scored a total of 21 goals with only four against.

TOP PERFORMANCES: Maddie Morgan scored two goals, took four shots in which three landed on target and collected four total points during 80 minutes of play in the match. The sophomore now has a total of nine career goals for the EWU program.

Madison Kem took only one shot on goal which hit its mark in the back of the net. She now collects her fifth career goal in an Eagle uniform.  

Mya Elder-Hammond, Gillian Martin, Angela Cipriano and Brittany Delridge each pick up one assist.

EWU goalkeeper Kelsee Winston collected 10 saves during 90 minutes of play.

HEAD COACH MISSY STRASBURG: Head coach Missy Strasburg collects her first Big Sky Conference victory at the helm. Additionally, she is the first head women's soccer coach to be victorious by a margin of two or more goals in their first conference match of their coaching career in EWU History.

Additionally, as a team, Strasburg helped continue EWU's six-match winning streak against the Bengals.

"What I appreciate about our team is the high standard of play by which they measure themselves. Our group has derived a lot of confidence from playing well against top teams and knows what we are truly capable of, and also wants to push and raise their standard beyond where we are currently," mentioned Strasburg. "Winning is hard, especially in conference play, and I am proud of this groups ability to find a way, even when things are imperfect. Our attention now turns to preparing for a very good Weber State team and collectively and cohesively putting out a quality team performance on both sides of the ball on Sunday, and earning a second win on the weekend."

INSIDE THE BOX SCORE: Eastern Washington took 14 shots with six landing on target, while Idaho State took 22 shots with 12 landing on target.

The Eagles forced the Bengals to make three saves versus EWU's 11, and Eastern also took four corner kicks while ISU took six.

UP NEXT: Eastern Washington's next scheduled fixture is on Sunday, Sept. 26 at 12 p.m. PT when they travel to Ogden, Utah to face Weber State.

Live Stats will be available HERE.

The match will be streamed live on ESPN+ HERE.