Women's Hoops Cruises Past Miami

Box score.

OXFORD, Ohio – The Eastern Michigan University women’s basketball team used hot shooting and aggressive rebounding to cruise to a 74-56 victory over Miami University Wednesday night here at Millett Hall. The victory marked the Eagles’ first victory in Oxford, Ohio since a 69-66 overtime triumph, Feb. 2, 1991 and just the fifth in the program’s 31-year history.

EMU improves to 12-9 (7-3 MAC) while drops Miami is 11-12 (5-5 MAC). A win at Miami was the last Mid-American Conference venue to elude the crew from Ypsilanti in the head coach Suzy Merchant era, now the Eagles have won at least once in every league city during the last nine years.

Eastern raced off to a 40-27 halftime lead and never looked back en route to the win. For the game EMU shot 46.4 percent (32-of 69) compared to just 28.1 percent (18-of-64) rate for Miami. The Eagles would also dominated the glass, collecting 55 caroms to just 33 for the RedHawks.

Freshman Alyssa Pittman turned in a game-best 18 points, including connecting on four threes, in 37 minutes of action. Senior Sarah VanMetre added another double-double to her collection, recording 15 points and 13 rebounds. With her rebound total she became just the fifth player in EMU school-history to haul down 700 career boards. Senior Patrice McKinney rounded out Eagles in double figures with a double-double of her own with 15 points and 13 rebounds.

Two Miami players reached double-digits in points with Amanda Jackson leading the way with 14 and Jaclyn Leininger adding 12.

The Eagles opened the contest firing as McKinney keyed the quick start with four points and three rebounds as EMU took a 9-5 edge after four minutes of work. The Green and White continued to click, rolling off eight of the next 11 points to take a 17-8 edge and force Miami to burn a timeout with 12:04 left in the period.

A trey by Pittman pushed the margin to 12, 20-8, but a Miami triple promptly countered to bring the RedHawks back to within nine. The RedHawks were struggling from the field shooting just 29.4 percent (5-of-17) over the first 11 minutes of play, but turnovers were starting to mount for the Eagles over the same span.

EMU remained red-hot, going on a 18-9 run over the next six minutes to take its biggest lead of the period at 15, 40-25, with 2:00 left in the half. Miami would hold the Eastern scoreless over the final few minutes as the teams headed into the locker room with the Eagles holding a 40-22 advantage.

The 40 first half points were the Eagles’ most during the opening 20 minutes since Dec. 9, 2006 at Wright State. For the half, EMU shot a stellar 51.4 percent (18-of-35) for the frame compared to just 27.3 percent (9-33) for MU. VanMere led all scorers with 13 points while Jackson keyed Miami with six.

The second half started much the same way the first half did with the Eagles using a 5-0 run to balloon the lead to 20, 49-29. Miami struggled to score for more than two minutes until Sarah Hall laid one off the glass to end the run. But another long scoring drought by MU followed, as the RedHawks were unable to get back into the score column until 14:22 when Amanda Jackson connected on a pair of free throws.

The offense would slow for Eastern Michigan as a quick 7-0 run cut it back to 15 points, 64-49, with 5:24 to play. However, that would be as close as Miami would get the rest of the frame as Eastern was able to trade scores and keep the advantage above 16 points the rest of the way.

Eastern returns to Ypsilanti Saturday, Feb. 10, to host the Bobcats of Ohio University in a 2 p.m. showcase at the Convocation Center. The game is preceded by the EMU Athletic Club Hall of Fame induction ceremonies which begin at 10:30 a.m. in the atrium. For more information, call 734.487.2282.

Eastern Michigan Athletics

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