Cedar City, Utah - The game was close going down the stretch but the Eastern Washington Eagles were able to defeat the SUU women's basketball team on Thursday night inside the Centrum Arena 85–82.

“Obviously the end outcome isn't exactly what we hope for,” SUU head coach Chris Boettcher said about the contest. “But, especially the second half, the execution and competitive effort that the team put forth was exactly what we had hoped would be there the whole game, and in fact the whole game we actually executed pretty well offensively and did a lot of really good things, they just have really good shooters and when they get going like they did tonight it's tough to combat that.”

Even though they didn't pick up a victory, the Thunderbirds gave a solid effort for forty minutes, which guard Jamie Smith attributed to playing inside the Centrum Arena.  

“I think it was just coming home,” she said. “We've been away for the past three games and it was good to come home. We had the band there, we had the great student section and all those fans behind us so it's fun to come back to our crowd and come in and try to get a W against one of the best teams in our conference.”

The Thunderbirds hit the first basket of the night, but after that EWU led for the rest of the quarter. The contest never got out of hand, however, as the EWU lead only got as high as six in the first 10 minute period.

The Eagles continued to hold the lead for all of the second quarter, and took a 12 point lead into the halftime break.

SUU started cutting into the EWU lead after the halftime break, as they trimmed the lead all the way down to three by the first media timeout of the second half. The Eagles got some of their momentum back near the end of the third quarter and upped their lead to six, 65–59.

The T-Birds kept their success going in the fourth quarter, and with just about five minutes to play they cut the EWU lead to one. With 3:10 left to play the game was tied at 73–73 but the Eagles hit back to back threes, one by Haley Hodgins and one by Delaney Hodgins, to gain the momentum back.

The T-Birds would keep it close down the stretch but a three pointer by Jamie Smith as time expired didn't have an impact on the result, as the T-Birds fell 85–82.

Smith led the way for the T-Birds with 18 points to go along with four rebounds. Breanu Reid was second on the team in scoring with 15. The T-Birds also got 13 points from Dari Frandsen and 12 points from Jessica Richardson.

For the Eagles, Hayley Hodgins finished with 24 points with six makes from behind the three-point line. Delaney Hodgins was second in scoring with 21 points.

Next up for the T-Birds will be another home contest on Saturday with the Idaho Vandals. That game is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. inside the Centrum Arena.

That game can be viewed on WatchBigSky.com or heard over the airwaves on KSUU 91.1.

Updates can be followed on Twitter @SUUGameday.