The Eastern women’s basketball team will host east division foe Austin Peay at 4:15 p.m. Friday in Lantz Arena.

This will be the first game of the Ohio Valley Conference intra-divisional play. The Panthers currently rank second in the west division with a 2-3 record behind division leader Tennessee-Martin, which is 5-0 in the conference.

This will be the third straight game against a team with a worse record than the Panthers, and head coach Debbie Black said they look to bring in some momentum into Saturday’s game after fighting back in their last game against Tennessee Tech.

“First of all, we are at home and second of all we are playing conference teams, not that I think that matters who you play,” Black said. “We know we kind of put ourselves behind the 8-ball. We need to step up and just learn that we cannot take anyone for granite. We have to play hard every night.”

Austin Peay is 4-13 this season and just snapped a 10-game losing streak with a win over Morehead State, which Eastern defeated over winter break.

Tiasha Gray leads the Governors with 13.6 points per game and has a shooting percentage of 35.4 through 17 games.

Eastern guard Katlyn Payne’s recent slump has her shooting 3-of-23 from the field in the last two games on the road.

Payne is also shooting 2-of-11 in the last two games from the 3-point line, but Black doesn’t think anyone is doing anything differently to guard her.

“She has made those shots a thousand times,” Black said. “She has gotten pretty good looks. The ball didn’t go in. I think Katlyn has to focus on her defensive end of the game and let her offense come to her. The only thing we know is defense and rebounding you can control. Whether the ball goes in, you never can control that.”

Black expects Payne to slowly get her confidence back and start knocking down shots.

During the last couple games, Black said her team hasn’t been as consistent as she wants them to and said if they can stay consistent, that is what will be most important to them.

“If we are up one or two, that doesn’t matter,” Black said. “We have to learn how to handle different things coming our way. We don’t have much time left, so we have to take make sure we take each game as it comes.”

Bob Reynolds can be reached at 581-2812 or rjreynolds@eiu.edu.