The Eastern women’s basketball team had five players scored in double figures propelling it to an 80-74 win against Murray State Monday night at Lantz Arena.

Sabina Oroszova had her eighth double-double in her last nine games, scoring 26 points and 13 rebounds for Eastern.

The Panthers shot 28-of-33 from the free-throw line and 24-of-27 in the second half.

Eastern coach Debbie Black thought the free throw shooting was the biggest difference in the game.

“If you ask your girls, what we do more than anything in the gym is shoot free throws,” she said. “We emphasize it. When we miss them, we run and it has been paying off.”

With Eastern having a 28-19 lead at halftime, the Panthers started off the second half making their first seven shots, led by Jordyne Crunk, who had Eastern’s first five points of the second half.

After the Panthers had a 40-26 lead with 17 minutes left in the second half, the Racers would go a 20-9 run to cut the Eastern lead down to three, capped off by a jumper from Chanyere Hosey.

Black then called a time out and told the team to relax, make a stop and execute the next play.

Coming out of the timeout the Panthers would go on an 11-4 run to put their lead back up to 10.

With about five minutes left in the second half, the Racers would cut the lead to three with a couple of free throw’s by Julia Fox, who had 14 points.

After a made jumper by Katlyn Payne, the Panthers and Racers would go back-and-forth for the rest of the game and Erica Brown iced the game with two free throws.

Payne, who has struggled in her last three games shooting the ball, struggled again from the floor in the first half of the game on Monday shooting 0-of-4.

In the second half, Payne shot 4-of-4 and credited all her success to Brown.

“She came up to me at halftime and was like, ‘be confident, you know you can shoot, but you know you gotta do the other things,’” Payne said. “As much as she is a freshman, she came for me and kind of boosted my confidence. I definitely contribute to everything I did in the second half to her.”

Brown made an immediate impact when she entered the game at the 13:10 mark in the first half.

She blocked a 3-point shot from Bianca Babic and then at the other end of the court made layup and was fouled.

Brown finished with 13 points on 5-of-8 shooting and six rebounds and her teammates are starting to notice her contribution.

“It is always awesome to see a freshman step up,” Payne said. “I mean obviously she came in and was playing Sabi’s position, and that is huge shoes to fill. I think she did a great job of not being nervous.”

In the first half, the teams’ combined for 47 points and Eastern held Murray State to four points in the first 13 minutes of the game.

Murray State was without its’ leading scorer Keiona Kirby, who averages 18 points a game. Kirby went down with a knee injury 19 seconds into the Racers game against Belmont, Tuesday.

The Racers shot 6-of-31 from the floor and 3-of-17 in the first half.

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