“Big Sky here we come!”

Those were the words shouted by women’s basketball head coach Dan Muscatell after his team beat third place Eastern Washington 57-41 at the Hornets Nest on Saturday and clinched the final spot in the Big Sky conference tournament.

Coming in to Saturday’s game, the Hornets had dropped their last six while struggling to clinch the sixth seed in the Big Sky and losing their leading scorer, Tyeisha Brown, to a knee injury.

Eastern Washington played the Hornets having won a double-overtime game at Northern Arizona on Thursday.

“We knew that they would be tired if we would make them tired,” Muscatell said.

During the first half both the Hornets and the Eagles shot under 30 percent. With 15 minutes left in the first half, the Hornets went scoreless for close to six minutes until guard Lindsay Calmettes snapped the drought with a free throw.

Despite the scoring problems the Hornets remained within two points of Eastern Washington at the half.

A re-energized Hornet team stepped out onto the court singing and cheering before the second half of the final home game for Samania Black, Kristine Knowlton and Tyeisha Brown, the teams’ seniors.

Sophomore guard Kim Sheehy scored 10 of her game-high 15 points in the second half.

“I just wanted to come out strong. I knew we could win this game. I just knew I had to step up. I wanted this for the seniors and their home time, last time here I wanted to give it all for them,” Sheehy said. “We just wanted to keep our defense up so that they couldn’t get on any runs.

“We just had faith in what we were doing and we executed well today.”

Horrible shooting by Eastern Washington gave the Hornets a decisive advantage. The Eagles finished the game with a 27 percent field goal percentage and went 2-17 from the three point line.

“We clamped down on them pretty good. Eastern Washington had a terrible shooting night and I want to credit some of that to our team,” Muscatell said.