Eagles Come Up Short at Illinois State

Box score.

NORMAL, Ill. – The Eastern Michigan University women’s basketball team struggled for consistency Sunday afternoon in a 68-55 setback to Illinois State here at Redbird Arena. The Eagles’ found themselves in an early hole and nearly overcame another double-digit deficit, but the Redbirds were able to find a late spurt of offense to capture the victory.

The loss drops the Eagles to 4-5 on the year while the Redbirds move to 7-2.

Sarah VanMetre once again led the Eagles, providing 22 points and nine rebounds in 38 minutes of play. Patrice McKinney was the only other Eagles in double-digits with 14 points.

Kenyatta Shelton keyed Illinois State with 20 points and 10 boards to go along with a pair of 15 point performances from Kristi Cirone and Maggiie Krick.

The first half was a period of runs by each school, and that trend continued for the entire contest. Eastern struggled out of the gate, missing on its first five shots from the floor until McKinney drained a shot with 16:09 left. The Redbirds on the other side were getting everything to drop, as ISU made four of its first six shots to take the 8-4 edge.

Scoring picked up for both squads as the Eagles went on a quick 6-3 run, that was capped by VanMetre three-pointer with 13:34 remaining in the stanza to give Eastern its only lead at 12-11. However, the EMU offense went silent allowing ISU to roll off 12 of the next 14 points to take its biggest lead of the half, 24-14, with 9:26 left to play.

The Green and White would respond with an 8-0 run of its own to pull within a pair at 28-26 via a lay-up by VanMetre. Once again it was the Eagles suffering through as scoring drought as Illinois State went on a 7-2 run to take a seven point advantage with 3:01 remaining in the half. Luckily for the Eagles the defense was able to clamp down, holding the Redbirds to just a late field goal as the teams headed to the locker with ISU leading 38-31.

Illinois State’s Kenyatta Shelton led all scorers in the first 20 minutes with 14 points on perfect 6-of-6 shooting. VanMetre paced the Eagles’ attack with 11 points and four rebounds while McKinney followed closely with eight points. The Redbirds controlled the glass 23 to 11, leading to nine second-chance points compared to just two for EMU.

Following the intermission the streaky play continued as Illinois State used a 10-2 run to expand its margin to 15, 48-33, forcing the Eagles to burn a timeout with 17:14 to play. But like before the Eagles held the Redbirds scoreless for more than eight minutes while pulling within eight points, 50-42, via a 9-0 run of their own.

ISU was able to get back into the scorebook with 8:38 to play as Shelton made consecutive lay-ups to end the drought. Eastern continued to step up the defense, cutting the deficit to six, 59-53, on a McKinney lay-up with 2:45 to go. The margin got even smaller when Kelly Watts grabbed a rebound and was fouled at the 2:29 mark, she was able to sink both free throws to make it 59-55.

With the game in the balance, ISU’s Krick drilled a long-distance three-pointer to make it 62-55 with 1:01 left to seal the victory. EMU would not score the rest of the way as the ‘Birds converted on its free throw to take the 68-55 decision.

The Eagles take the next 10 days off to complete final exams and enjoy the holidays before traveling to Greenville, S.C., Dec. 28, to square off with Furman University. The Eagles will make the most of the trip, also facing Western Carolina, Dec. 30, to complete the non-conference schedule.

Eastern Michigan Athletics

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