Smith’s 23 Vaults Ewu Over Idaho

One could have suffered first-degree burns after shaking Tina Smith’s hand Saturday night.

The Eastern Washington senior had the sizzling hand, pouring in a career-high 23 points and leading the Eagles past visiting Idaho 72-58 in a women’s Big Sky Conference basketball game at Reese Court.

Smith shot 8 for 13 from the floor, 2 for 2 from 3-point range, 5 for 5 from the free-throw line. She also grabbed a game-high nine rebounds.

The 6-foot forward went into the game shooting just 34 percent from the field. But in her last five games, Smith has hit 31 of 58 (53 percent).

“I’m just relaxing and sticking with the shot more,” Smith said. “I knew it was just a matter of time before the shots started falling.”

Against Idaho, Smith scored 13 of Eastern’s first 16 points and set the tone for the rest of the game.

“I thought Tina and Jennifer (Sutter, EWU’s point guard) did a great job of setting the tone for us,” Eagles coach Heidi VanDerveer said.

Sutter, a 5-7 junior, is 10th in the nation in assists. She dished out 10 against the Vandals and had just three turnovers. It was the fifth time this season that she hit double figures in that category.

As for Idaho, the Vandals created plenty of offensive chances with hard work on defense. But for every big play on defense, they answered with a turnover at the offensive end.

“I thought we played very, very poorly,” Idaho coach Julie Holt said. “We stole the ball 17 times, but I bet we only ever converted just one of those steals into points.”

Idaho’s tiny point guard, 5-3 Ari Skorpik, played a big game and led the team in scoring with 15. She also had five assists, seven steals and five rebounds. She also had six turnovers.

Mindy Rice, who has suffered from a strained left arch all season, played just 13 minutes for the Vandals in the first half in which EWU took a 32-23 lead. She returned for a 3-minute stint in the second half before sitting down for good. Rice said she may have torn the band of muscle surrounding the arch.

“She said she felt it rip,” Holt said. “She wanted to try it again so we put her back in, but it was obvious something wasn’t right.”

Eastern increased its lead to 48-32 with Smith’s hot shooting before Idaho cut the lead to 60-51 with 4:01 to play. But that was as close as the Vandals would get.

EWU improved to 7-15, 5-5 in the Big Sky. Idaho fell to 7-15, 4-6.

Eastern Washington 72, Idaho 58

Idaho (7-15, 4-6) - Johnson 2-7 2-3 7, Hawks 3-10 0-0 6, Rice 2-5 0-0 4, Skorpik 5-13 2-3 15, McDaniel 4-9 0-0 8, Ortner 0-2 0-0 0, Morris 0-0 0-0 0, Greenwood 1-6 1-2 3, Ackerman 1-1 0-0 0, Blakely 0-0 0-0 0, Stone 5-7 3-6 13. Totals 23-60 8-14 58.

Eastern Washington (7-15, 5-5) - Watterson 3-11 2-3 9, Smith 8-13 5-5 23, Missall 6-12 2-2 14, Bartleson 2-3 4-5 8, Sutter 0-3 2-2 2, Ray 4-7 4-7 12, Sloan 2-2 0-0 4. Totals 25-51 19-24 72.

Halftime-EWU 32, Idaho 23. 3-Pointers-Idaho 4-15 (Skorpik 3-7), EWU 3-7 (Smith 2-2). Rebounds-Idaho 30 (Stone 7), EWU 38 (Smith 9). Assists-Idaho 11 (Skorpik 5), EWU 22 (Sutter 10). A-844.

, DataTimes