EKU women get big basketball road win at Lipscomb

Five Colonels score in double figures

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (EKU Athletics) – Eastern Kentucky earned a season sweep over Lipscomb with an 82-69 road victory on Saturday afternoon.

The Colonels, who are now 5-0 in five meetings against the Bison, trailed for the majority of the first quarter, but used a pair of free throws from Kayra Freeman and a jumper at the buzzer from Ariel Kirkwood to erase a four-point deficit in the final 17 seconds and make the score 21-21 after 10 minutes of play. EKU (12-13, 5-7 ASUN) never trailed again, scoring the first five point of the second period to take a 26-21 lead after Emma Hacker’s three-pointer with 8:19 left in the half.

Lipscomb (8-16, 3-8 ASUN) cut the lead to one at the 7:21 mark, but Kirkwood answered with a trey and Jayla Johnson added an old-fashioned three-point play to push the margin to 32-25. Leading 36-30 with 4:47 left in the half, EKU held the Bison to 1-of-8 shooting the rest of the quarter and closed the stanza on a 12-3 run, taking a 48-33 lead into the locker room.

The Bison trimmed EKU’s advantage to 10 three different times in the third quarter, but never could pull within single digits. The Colonels put the game out of reach with a 12-0 run over a six-minute span, culminating with a layup from Alice Recanati that gave Eastern a 75-53 lead with 5:57 remaining in the fourth quarter.

Five different Colonels scored in double-figures, led by Kirkwood’s game-high 16 points. Johnson and Recanati each finished with 15 points, while I’Liyah Green posted 13 points. Bria Bass tallied a double-double with 10 points and 12 rebounds. Kirkwood also led the Colonels with four assists and four blocks.

EKU shot 27-of-59 (45.8 percent) from the floor and made 23 of its 29 (79.3 percent) free-throw attempts. The Colonels held a 38-26 advantage on the glass and forced 18 Bison turnovers.

Eastern returns home to host North Alabama on Thursday night at 5:00 p.m. in McBrayer Arena.