After losing to Eastern Washington University on the road back on Jan. 18, Sacramento State women’s basketball will look to exact revenge at home Thursday evening at The Nest.

Sac State fell to the Eagles,78-65 in the first matchup between the two teams and Eastern Washington owns a 26-13 record against the Hornets.

After being on the road for the past two weeks, Hornets’ head coach Bunky Harkleroad said his team is excited to be back on its home court.

“It’s a lot of travel but I think overall the trip was good for our team,” Harkleroad said. “We’re excited to be home this week, and to be here longer than a couple of days.”

The Hornets (15-6, 7-5) enter Thursday’s play with a 10-1 record at home and are tied with the Eagles (11-10, 7-5) for third place in the Big Sky Conference.

“Being back on the home court and having our fans there is going to be big for us,” said Sac State senior guard Alle Moreno said. “Our offense is looking pretty good right now so hopefully we can get some stops and come away with a win.”

Hornets freshman forward Hallie Gennett, who has averaged 15 points per game the last three contests, said her squad will have to step up its defensive effort as well.

“We have to keep up our energy on defense,” Gennett said. “As long as we keep up the whole game, that will help us a lot.”

Coming into the game the Hornets rank 11th in the conference in points allowed, so Harkleroad expressed similar thoughts when discussing team defense.

“We have to keep people from going uncontested to the rim,” Harkleroad said. “We have to do a better job of that this week.”

In order to do so, the Hornets will have to quell the Eagles’ spirit who come in shooting 43.0 percent as a team, including 38.0 percent from 3-point range. In conference play, Eastern Washington has shot 58.0 percent from the floor.

Eagles’ redshirt junior guard Lexie Nelson leads her team, as she has averaged 16.7 points per game this season on 46.2 percent shooting, including 43.1 percent from 3-point distance.

Tip-off will be at 7 p.m.

 

Satchi can be reached on Twitter at @sh_sports