Lady Eagles look to turn things around

This archived article was written by: Jordan Weihing

The USU Eastern Lady Eagles have had some tough match-ups these past couple weeks and are looking to turn things around before the region tournament. Head coach Dave Paur said, “Everyone has learned how to beat us and we can’t do what we have done the last couple games…they have adjusted to us, now we have to adjust to them.“
The losing streak began on Jan. 30 when the team faced the Salt Lake Community College Bruins. It wasn’t the first time that SLCC faced the Eagles. While Bryanna Adams did all she could to carry the Lady Eagles with 18 points, it wasn’t enough to compete with SLCC’s Cassidy Fraughton who achieved a double-double with 20 points and 11 rebounds.
The Lady Eagles couldn’t keep up with SLCC’s 39 percent impressive shooting performance. The final score was 71-56.
Later that week, Eagle fans arrived at the BDAC to watch USU Eastern take on rival Snow College. Snow seemed unaffected by the defense style and run and gun offense of Paur’s Lady Eagles. The Eagles struggled all night to keep up with the Badgers shooting performance. USU Eastern’s 21 percent shooting couldn’t compete with Snow’s impressive 40 percent.
Larrisa Quintana led the Eagles in scoring with 15 points and Morganne Madsen lead in rebounds with eight. After all their efforts, the team’s poor shooting and 18 turnovers cost the Eagles the game, losing 89-59.
After a disappointing loss to their rivals, the Eagles faced off against the College of Southern Idaho on Feb. 6. Adams led theEagles in scoring again with 17 points while Isabel Costa dominated the boards with 11 rebounds. However, defensively the Eagles couldn’t contain CSI allowing six players to score over 10 points. The Eagles lost the game 95-88.
After losing three games in a row the team looked to turn things around against North Idaho College. Quintanna again lead in scoring with 15 points and Maddy Murphy followed close behind with 14 and Lejla Hadzialijagie did her best to control the boards with 10 rebounds.
Again defensively the Lady Eagles failed, Allowing opposing player Panisessi Taimani to dominate the entire game. Taimani achieved a double-double with 25 points and 19 rebounds. NIC shut out all of USU Eastern’s hope defeating the Eagles 86-73.
Paur and the Lady Eagle’s look to learn from these past four games and change up their game plan to throw opposing teams off guard. Paur said, “Our last four games our opponents have put us into a half court game and they killed us. So we have to figure out a way to get back into to the running game.”
Now that all the teams have played against Paur’s new system, they were prepared. Paur said, “They are getting better at breaking our press and then they just pass it into their post players… they have murdered us.” He is changing a few small things to make the Lady Eagles more threatening defensively.
How effective the changes are will be seen at the last home game of the season against Colorado Northwestern Community College on Feb. 15. The team hits the road to face off against Snow on Feb. 20 and SLCC on the 22 before heading to Snow for the Scenic West Athletic Conference Tournament Feb. 28 through March 1.