Lady Eagle basketball season tips off
The Eagle spotlight has been following Eastern’s women’s basketball team since the start of November. The Lady Eagles are 1-3 so far this year stealing away the game from Pima CC on November 10th.
Whitney Fieldsted led the Eagles in the win by scoring 13 points and also adding 14 rebounds. Point guard Hailee Parry controlled the Eagles’ offense throughout the game adding four points to go along side her five assists.
Assistant Coach Chelsey Warburton said, “we about gave it away with turnovers and missed free throws.” The Eagles shot 13-22 from the free throw line for the game.
This archived article was written by: Hayden Peterson
The Eagle spotlight has been following Eastern’s women’s basketball team since the start of November. The Lady Eagles are 1-3 so far this year stealing away the game from Pima CC on November 10th.
Whitney Fieldsted led the Eagles in the win by scoring 13 points and also adding 14 rebounds. Point guard Hailee Parry controlled the Eagles’ offense throughout the game adding four points to go along side her five assists.
Assistant Coach Chelsey Warburton said, “we about gave it away with turnovers and missed free throws.” The Eagles shot 13-22 from the free throw line for the game.
On Nov. 2, the Lady Eagles played their first home game against Idaho Elite,(a group of former D1 athletes organized out of Salt Lake City). The game went into the half tied 28-28. In the second half the game stayed close clear to the end when the Eagles found themselves trailing by six with just a few minutes to play. They resorted to fouling and trying to get steals and ended up losing the game 56-47.
Leading scorer for the Lady Eagles was Lerissa Quintana who had 12 points in her 24 minutes. Hailee Parry added six assists, and Brooke Slade helped clear the glass on both ends of the court, grabbing 10 rebounds of her own.
The following day the Lady Eagles returned to the court looking for some revenge playing Idaho Elite once more. The Lady Eagles came out of the locker room with a lot of energy, but ran into a very determined team in Idaho Elite. The nets would be tested in this game as Idaho Elite would shoot 39 percent from the field and 36 percent from the three point line, scoring a total of 71 points.
The Eagles went on to shoot 29 percent from the field which was the lowest percentage they had shot all year. They then went on to shoot 14 percent from the three-point line going 2-14. Turnovers plagued the Eagles in this game as well as they turned the ball over 24 times.
The Eagles would meet Idaho Elite once more the following week and the game would come down to the final minutes and Idaho Elite would pull it out once more by four points, winning by a total of 64-60.
Idaho Elite would jump out to a quick start scoring 30 points in the first half, while the Eagles were held to 23. The second half started in favor of the Lady Eagles as point guard Hailee Parry began to look for her own shot scoring nine points in the second half and found her teammates for some open jump shots as well. Three Lady Eagles scored in double digits and Amy Arbon added 9 points of her own to go along with 3 steals, 2 assists and 2 rebounds.
The Eagles would score 37 points in the second half, but would fall just short of the comeback.
Staff, students and coaches on campus are all very excited about this season, Ruth Whiteside, BDAC concessions manager added, “what a good group of girls we have here this year, they are very respectful and I love the excitement I see from each of them every time they step onto the court.”
Warburton has repeated several times the importance of free throws and not turning the ball over. “In this conference if we can limit the amount of turnovers and shoot better from the free throw line I think we will be very tough to beat.”
Amy Arbon, one of the returning sophomores and a team captain, said, “We are a young team with only six returning sophomores. We have a lot of talent and are learning everyday on how we can improve as individuals and as a team. This should be a great year for the Eagles!”
The next home game will be Dec. 13 when USU Eastern hosts the College of Southern Idaho. The Lady Eagles will play their conference games this year on Thursdays and Saturdays.
