Throughout her basketball career, freshman women’s basketball forward Erica Brown said her one fear is to make a mistake.

In her short time at Eastern, she has learned to not be afraid to make a mistake and said she is continuing to overcome that.

“My coaches told me that mistakes happen, and they are going to happen in life,” Brown said.

In the first 11 games of the season, Brown was averaging 7.5 minutes a game, and there were two games where she didn’t see action.

Over the past two games, Brown has averaged more than 22 minutes of playing time and produced about as well as her coaches wanted her to.

According to head coach Debbie Black, Brown has always been a consistent player at practice.

“It was a matter of biding her time and seeing if she could handle it,” Black said. “She has proven more and more that she is willing to play a role and do what she needs to do.”

In Saturday’s loss to Austin Peay, Brown had 11 points on 5-of-7 shooting and added nine rebound and four blocks.

On Monday, in the win over Murray State, Brown logged 21 minutes of playing time. She scored 13 points on 5-of-8 shooting, adding six rebounds and three blocks.

“I was able to do some good things for my team, and I think that is what led me to play these 20-25 minutes in the last two games,” she said.

Her teammates are impressed by the way Brown has played, especially junior guard Katlyn Payne, who said on Monday, Brown came up to her at halftime and talked to her, which propelled Payne to have a dominant shooting performance in the second half.

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

When being recruited out of Nashville Community High School, in Hoyleton, Ill, Brown said she had options to go other places, but said Eastern fit more when she visited, because it was closer to home and easier to make the transition from high school to college.

“The coaches have been really good and my teammates have been really good helping me with learning new things on the basketball court,” Brown said.

In her four-year career in high school, Brown played up on varsity all four years. Her teams posted a 116-19 record through that time.

She also helped her school capture the IHSA 2A State Title as a senior and was named the ‘Player of the Year’ in 2013 by The Southern newspaper.

Brown, who went to state championships three of the four years when she in high school, said she was working on getting the state title for a long time.

“That state championship, itself, has helped me become a better player, because it showed that hard work does pay off,” she said. “If you set a goal and work hard enough, you can get to that.”

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