On Wednesday night, the Eastern Michigan University Women’s Basketball team traveled to Northeast Ohio to face the Kent State University Golden Flashes. They lost by a score of 79-59.
The defeat is the 13th consecutive for Eastern Michigan. They now fall to 1-17 on the season and 0-9 in the conference. It was a game in which Kent State led from the start, leading 12-2 in the first five minutes of the contest before the Eagles climbed back slightly at the end of the first quarter but still trailed 17-12.
From that point of the game, the closest the Eagles brought it back to was nine points when they were down 55-46 at the one-minute mark of the third quarter. Eastern Michigan had the advantage in the third quarter, winning 22-17, the only quarter in which the Eagles had more than 13 points.
Eastern Michigan individually saw good offensive performances from Sisi Eleko (Montreal, Quebec/New Hope Academy/Canisius) and Olivia Smith (Fort Wayne, Indiana/South Side), who had 24 and 16 points to score 48 of Eastern’s 59 total points. Eleko now has eight games this season with at least 20 points. She also added nine rebounds in the contest.
For Smith, it was her best-scoring game of the season. While she has been in double figures seven times this year, she never had 16 before tonight. She had 13 points on two different occasions this year.
As a team, Eastern outrebounded the Golden Flashes offensively. They had 11 offensive rebounds in comparison to the Golden Flashes’ eight. They had six second-chance points on the evening.
Next, Eastern Michigan returns home on Saturday, February 1, for a matchup against the Toledo University Rockets. Tip-off is set for 2 p.m., and the game will be streamed on ESPN+.
For more information on the Eastern Michigan University Women’s Basketball program, you can visit the Echo’s website.