EWU women’s basketball fought hard for a road win at the University of Idaho and improves to 9-6, 3-0 in conference. EWU had previously won conference games against University of Northern Colorado and University of North Dakota.

The Vandals were previously undefeated in league; they drop to 10-5 overall and 2-1 in league.

The Eagles were not leading for most of the first half, but they got their first lead of the game with 5:31 left in the half.

Going into the half, EWU had a 33-29 lead over the Vandals.

EWU did not lose their momentum going into the third quarter. Four 3-point shots were made, which led to a 21-point third quarter. The largest lead of the game for the Eagles was 51-36 with 4:09 left in the third quarter. By the time the fourth quarter came along, the Vandals cut the lead to just 3 points with only 30 seconds remaining in the game.

Forward Mariah Cunningham kept EWU’s lead alive with a bucket including an and-one with 18 seconds left in the game.

With a final score of 74-66, guard Hayley Hodgins was the team leader for scoring with 16 points and leader of steals with a total of five. Hodgins has a current streak of scoring in double-digits for 31 straight games, going back from last season.

She is currently the second of all-time in career scoring with 1,473 points in 109 appearances.

Guard Tisha Phillips was able to return to the court for the first time since her injury. She racked up 9 points, three steals and rebounded the ball six times. Forward Ashli Payne had her fourth double-double for the season. She had a season high of 16 rebounds while also scoring 15 points.

EWU was able to rebound the ball 43 times, 18 of them being offensive. While the Vandals had 36 rebounds, they also were able to score 32 points from the bench, while EWU only had 14.

“Any time you can go on the road in the Big Sky and get a win is a good thing … I think our nonconference schedule really prepared us well to play in tough environments against good teams. I’m proud of this group for stepping up, being solid defensively and making plays. Idaho plays extremely hard, they’re well coached, and they give maximum effort,” head coach Wendy Schuller said in an interview with goeags.com.

The Eagles will remain on the road for their next game, traveling to play Southern Utah on Jan. 14.