| The Lady Golden Eagles Mallory Holm is surrounded by NIC players during a SWAC game at the BDAC on Saturday night. |
After achieving a national ranking early in the season, the College of Eastern Utah women’s basketball team has struggled. This past weekend’s games were no exception.
On Thursday night the CEU team hosted the College of Southern Idaho. It was a battle of the Golden Eagles versus the Screaming Eagles with the Screaming Eagles making most of the noise.
CEU went over five minutes in the middle of the first half without hitting a shot. The home team had good defense in that first half to keep the game close and they did have a flurry of scoring to end the period and pull within three of CSI.
However, the cold streak returned in the second half. CEU shot only 26 percent against the 52 percent shooting of their opponents.
They also tried to score with the long ball throwing up 12 from outside the arc, but only one of those went in. On the free throw line, they shot only 50 percent, making five of 10.
In the end it wasn’t much of a contest with CSI out scoring CEU by 13 for a final score of 66-53.
The women then had a chance on Saturday night to redeem themselves against the Cardinals of North Idaho College.
The Golden Eagles wasted no time in establishing an early lead. Even though they were only shooting 37 percent, they sunk 13 out of 15 from the line. They went into the locker room with a comfortable eight point lead.
When the second half resumed, they widened the lead to 18 points. It looked like they would cruise to an easy victory.
Then the wheels came off.
The Cardinals began to put the pressure on. They clawed and scrapped their way back into the game. They force turnovers and bad shots by the Golden Eagle squad.
CEU missed a couple of key free throws in the final minutes that could have iced the game for them and NIC hit a shot in the final seconds to send the game into over time.
The Golden Eagles came out hot at first and took a five point lead early in OT, but the Cardinals wanted the victory just a bit more. They hit a pair of free throws with seconds left to play that gave them a three point lead.
CEU had one final chance with a field goal, but the shot clanked off the rim and the game went into the loss column for the Golden Eagles with a 74-71 score.
The CEU women will head to Rangely, Colo. for a road game on Jan. 14.
The next home games for both the Golden Eagle teams will be Feb. 3 against Colorado Northwestern.