By Loren Miller, Utah State Eastern Sports Information
PRICE – Utah State Eastern women’s basketball defeated the Grays Harbor Community College Chokers 70-55 on Thursday afternoon in Las Vegas.
After almost three weeks of no games on the schedule, the Eagles started their three-game tournament in Las Vegas with a tough start against the Chokers.
The Eagles opened the game trailing 12-2 before refocusing and pulling together a 14-2 run to close out the first quarter.
“We had a slow start and missed several layups. We told the girls to stay with it because we were getting great looks but they just weren’t falling. At the end of the quarter, they did a great job at getting back in the game,” said USU Eastern Head Coach Chelsey Warburton.
In the second quarter the Eagles would struggle shooting 23 percent from the floor and be outscored by the Chokers 16-12 to trail at halftime.
“The first half wasn’t so pretty but that’s understandable due to us not being on the court together for a week because of the holiday,” said freshman guard Lamija Coric.
The Chokers would hold on to the momentum in the third quarter until sophomore Coric would catch fire with less than five minutes to go in the period.
Coric scored 11 of her 14 points off the bench in the second part of the third quarter to help the Eagles pull away from Grays Harbor.
“Lamija was the spark for us offensively, she helped us regain the lead and gave us the boost we needed to finish the game,” said Waburton.
USU Eastern would build a double-digit lead in the fourth quarter by shooting 50 percent from the field.
The Eagles would lead as much as 16 in the fourth quarter on their way to a second-straight win.
In the fourth quarter we started to play the game we wanted to play and we took better shots and played together as a team,” said Coric.
Four different Eagles scored in double figures on Thursday with freshman Emmery Wagstaff leading all scorers with 18 points along with four rebounds.
Sophomore Alyssa Crumley had a double-double of 10 points and 11 rebounds while fellow sophomore Abby Butler finished the game with 12 points and four rebounds.
“It is great to see multiple players score in double figures and it is something that can happen every game for us,” said Waburton.
Freshman Morgan Toluono had a big game on the boards for USU Eastern finishing with 14 rebounds.
As a team the Eagles out rebounded the Chokers 56-31 including 24 on the offensive end.
“The rebounding was very important for us tonight. At the beginning, we missed lots of shots in the paint so it was good that we could get more second chance scoring opportunities by grabbing the offensive rebounds,” said Coric.
The Eagles will play on Friday afternoon at 2:30 p.m. inside the CSN Sports Center in Las Vegas against the Southern Utah All-Stars.
Friday’s game can be watched live on the Scenic West Digital Network at scenicwestnetwork.com or on the NJCAA App.