Lady Eagles are playoff-bound

The EWU women’s basketball team is playoff-bound in this year’s Big Sky Conference Tournament. The goal now is to remain the No. 1 seed and host the tournament here at EWU. 

A pair of wins this past weekend secured a spot in the playoffs for the Eagles as they beat Northern Colorado 63-52 Friday, Feb. 19, and won a thriller Saturday, Feb. 20 against Northern Arizona, 71-64.

“The first thing we wanted to do going into the year was to make it into the tournament,” said Head Coach Wendy Schuller. “We feel like we have a chance to win a league championship. We have put ourselves into a situation where we control our own destiny. Destiny is a choice, and it is not something that is going to happen to us. We have to make it happen.”

EWU got out to an early lead in Friday’s game against UNC and never looked back, jumping on the Bears 10 minutes into the game. UNC chipped away at the Eagles’ lead to come within 11 points at halftime.

The Eagles came out of halftime, building their lead for the entire second half. The Bears, however, battled with the Eagles but fell short with EWU winning the game 63-52.

Julie Piper continued her outstanding play for the Eagles by scoring 15 points with seven rebounds. Brianne Ryan also had a great game as she shot 8-of-10 from the field adding 17 points.

“I think that Julie Piper did a nice job of finishing for us in the paint, and Brianne Ryan had a really nice game making things happen,” Schuller said.

Saturday night’s game against Northern Arizona proved to be a test for the Eagles as the Lumberjacks came to Reese Court with nothing to lose.

Coming into the game, NAU had an overall record of 5-20. NAU built an 11-2 lead early in the ball game, but the Eagles got it together to tie the game at 13 before NAU went back up nine points, ending the first half with a seven-point lead, 34-27.

EWU struggled in the second half as the Lumberjacks led by 14 points with 5:24 minutes left in the game. 

Tatjana Sparavalo nailed a 3-pointer to bring the Eagles within one point. Kyla Evans captured the lead for the Eagles with a layup which propelled the Eagles to finish the game with a seven-point victory, 71-64. The Eagles made the comeback of all comebacks as they used a 24-3 run to end the game.

“I thought Northern Arizona came in well prepared, and they came in and played harder than we did. We are very lucky that we got a win tonight. We learned that we can’t let teams come in and play harder than us. We won’t win basketball games that way. I was really proud of us for not laying down and giving up. We were resilient. We fought back and made big plays,” Schuller said.

Three Eagles scored double digits Saturday night. Piper kept her hot hand scoring 17 points and had nine rebounds. Chene Cooper got hot at the right time in the second half with six assists and added 18 points. Sparavalo also sparked her offensive performance ending the night with 21 points.

“Sparavalo got hot. And we are smart enough to know that when someone gets hot, you keep feeding them the ball,” said Schuller, whose team had a 39-14 advantage in bench points. “She produced and did a really great job. Cooper played really well and gave us a great spark off the bench when we needed it.”

The Eagles (17-9, 10-3) will hit the road this weekend to lock up the No. 1 seed for the BSC Tournament with match ups against Weber St. Feb. 26 and Idaho St. Feb. 27.

EWU will return for their final regular season home game against Portland State March 6 with a start time of 2:05 p.m.