OREM, Utah – Eastern Washington jumped out to a big lead in the first quarter and cruised to an 83-50 win over Utah Valley women's basketball Tuesday night at the UCCU Center.
 
The Eagles (2-2) opened the game hitting nine of their first 12 field goals for a 25-2 first-quarter lead, which they held for the remaining 30 minutes of play.  
 
"Our team needs to learn if we're going to be successful, we've got to take some pride on the defensive end," said Utah Valley head coach Cathy Nixon. "When we did that, we were able to get some momentum and when we didn't, that made it easy for them."
 
Following the halftime break, the Wolverines (0-4) started to come alive with a 14-4 run after draining four straight three-pointers at the beginning of the third quarter. A sequence of three-point buckets from Mariah Seals, Britta Hall, Jordan Holland and Taylor Gordon, followed by a Seals layup brought the deficit to 19 with 16:50 left on the game clock.
 
However, Eastern Washington was able to counter with a 13-5 scoring spurt of its own to hold off a big comeback attempt by the Wolverines.
 
UVU's junior duo of Gordon and Seals led their squad in scoring on the night with 14 points and 10 points, respectively, to give them each their fourth consecutive contest of reaching double figures. Freshman Jordan Holland also had her best scoring night in a Utah Valley uniform with 12 points to give the Wolverines three double-digit scorers.
 
The Wolverines now set out on their first out-of-state trip of 2016-17 to San Luis Obispo, Calif., for a two-day tournament from Nov. 25-26. They open the Cal Poly Tournament with a Black Friday matchup against Central Michigan at 2:30 MST and have a quick turnaround with another 1:30 tip-off versus host Cal Poly on Saturday.