A difficult start to the 2018-19 season continued Sunday for the EWU women’s basketball team. The Eagles (0-0, 1-5) fell to Fresno State (0-0, 4-2) by a score of 68-58, their fourth loss in a row.

“I think we were better [today] than we’ve been,” EWU head coach Wendy Schuller said. “I think we’re growing, I think we’re coming together and continuing to play hard. We just have to keep believing in each other […] it’s a process and we knew that coming in.”

While each quarter was close, EWU was outscored by at least a point in each period. FSU  held an 18-17 lead after the first quarter and led 37-31 going into halftime. EWU was outscored in the second half 31-27.

EWU had four players in double figures and was led by senior Violet Kapri Morrow with 16 points. Senior Alissa Sealby had ten points, six rebounds and two blocks, and freshman Grace Kirscher had 12 points and six rebounds. Junior Uriah Howard contributed 12 points and four rebounds off the bench.

“My goal was to play hard and get a win,” Howard said. “We’d been on a losing streak, so I was really expecting us to win the game […] As a team, our goal is always to win the game so I feel like we just gave a lot of effort and we just came up short.”

EWU outshot FSU 44.8 percent to 35.5 percent and had 15 assists to 11 for FSU. Schuller said that the free throw shooting and rebounding were the main statistical reasons for the defeat. EWU gave up 19 offensive rebounds and only shot three free throws, making one. Meanwhile, FSU shot 17-20 from the charity stripe.

“Nineteen offensive boards, that’s on us,” Schuller said. “That’s us not doing a great job of getting a body and backing them out […] and it’s tough when they shoot 17 more free throws than you do. We have to do a better job of defending without fouling.”

EWU now heads on the road for six straight games, with a trip to Boise State up next on Dec 7. The next home game is a conference matchup on Jan. 7 against Northern Colorado.