Eastern Washington goes cold in second half, fall 74-64 at Montana State
From staff reports
Eastern Washington went cold in the second half and also had no answer for Montana State’s Brandon Walker as the Bobcats defeated the Eagles men’s basketball team 74-64 on Monday at Worthington Arena in Bozeman.
Ahead 40-36 early in the second half, the Eagles scored just six points over the next 9 minutes. The Bobcats, meanwhile, scored 25 points to take a 61-46 lead into the final stretch.
The junior forward Walker made 9 of 10 shots and scored 20 points to lead the Bobcats, who as a team made 18 of 27 field goal attempts in the second half. Jabe Mullins, the former WSU guard, scored 10 points off the bench for Montana State, which got 31 points from its reserves.
Senior Andrew Cook scored a game-high 21 points for the Eagles, who led most of the first half. Sophomore Sebastian Hartmann scored 13 points, and redshirt freshman Emmett Marquardt added 11.
It was the third loss in four games for the Eagles, who played each of those contests on the road over the last 12 days. They dropped to 2-4 in Big Sky play and 6-13 overall.
The victory for Montana State (8-12, 3-4) evened its season series with the Eagles following a 68-63 loss on Jan. 4 in Cheney.
Eastern is at home Thursday against Northern Arizona (11-8, 2-4) and Saturday against Big Sky leading Northern Colorado (14-5, 6-0).
Women
Montana State 58, Eastern Washington 56: Peyton Howard missed a running shot in the lane as time expired and Montana State held on to beat Eastern Washington at Reese Court in Cheney.
Eastern trailed by 13 heading into the fourth quarter but rallied to tie the game at 52 when Alexis Pettis hit a 3-pointer with 2:06 left. But the first-place Bobcats (17-2, 7-0 Big Sky) scored the next four points and never gave up the lead.
EWU freshman Kourtney Grossman set new career-highs with 18 points and 19 rebounds, which were the most rebounds recorded by any Big Sky women’s basketball player in a game this season.
But Grossman made just 6 of 14 shots, and the rest of Eastern’s starters went just 10 of 42 from the field. As a team, the Eagles shot 29.7%, their lowest percentage during Big Sky play this season.
The senior Howard (7 points) finished 2 of 13 from the field and had 12 turnovers, five more than her previous season-high. Eastern’s 22 turnovers were their most since committing 23 against Portland on Nov. 17.
Eastern (6-12, 2-4) is on the road this week, at Northern Arizona on Thursday and at Northern Colorado on Saturday.