Missouri-St. Louis was held scoreless for nearly 10 minutes in the second half.

UMSL guard Nichole Helfrich posted a lay up inside with 9 minutes, 56 seconds left in the second half. By then it was too late for the Riverwomen as they trailed Eastern 64-33.

A combination of missed shots, turnovers and steals led the Panthers defense to go on a 14-2 run in the second half of Friday’s 83-48 win at Lantz Arena.

The Riverwomen committed five turnovers and missed 11 shots during their scoring drought.

“Our defense was limiting them and getting the ball in transition,” said Eastern head coach Brady Sallee.

Eastern executed its offense with UMSL center Jennifer Martin in foul trouble early. Martin had three fouls in the first half alone and finished the night with four.

“It’s important to get their key players in foul trouble,” said sophomore center Rachel Galligan.

Martin, UMSL’s tallest player at 6-foot, 1-inch, was limited to six points because of the early foul trouble.

“I’m just taught to take the ball in whoever’s guarding me,” Galligan said. “She was a tough player.”

Galligan and senior guard Meggie Eck each posted 18 points in the game to lead the Panther offense. Eck was 4-6 from behind the three-point line.

“I’m always looking for my shot and that’s something I can bring to this team,” Eck said. “The girls did a real good job of screening and giving me the ball.”

Although the Riverwomen were not able to find a single trey during the game, Eck posted four of Eastern’s seven three pointers.

“She’s our senior leader,” Galligan said. “We do kind of look to her for her to give us a spark like that.”

The Panther defense, during the second half, only gave up 19 points.

“We came into the game with one of our goals is to improve the half-court defense,” Eck said. “We bunkered down and took care of it.”

In the first half, that was not the case as Eastern fell behind 6-0 early, but Sallee put in Galligan and freshmen Jessica Huffman and Brittney Coleman.

“I thought the energy that we started playing in the game after those three came in the game was really the difference,” Sallee said.

Eastern would not take the lead until sophomore guard Megan Edwards hit a jumper down the lane with 13:05 left in the first half.

Her basket put the Panthers up 14-13.

“That’s something that we need to work on,” Eck said. “We need to come out ready to play. That team was really pumped up and they were ready to go. We can’t afford do that against upcoming teams on our schedule.”

Edwards went for a jumper with less than eight minutes to go in the first half and hit the floor hard. Edwards did not return to the game and had a left leg cast when she returned to the court in the second half.

“We’re just going to see what shakes out with that,” Sallee said. “I don’t think we’re as fragile with just losing one player.”

Eastern will have to play without Edwards in their season-opener against Bradley at 7:35 p.m. on Tuesday night at Lantz Arena.