Eastern women’s basketball forward Sabina Oroszova scored 24 points, all in the second half, on 8-of-14 shooting in the Panthers 77-72 win over Belmont in Lantz Arena on Saturday.

In the first half, Oroszova was held to no shot attempts and only played seven minutes due to foul trouble, and said she didn’t really do much at halftime to come out firing in the second half.

“Thankfully I have my teammates to do work for me,” she said. “They held the team where they were supposed to be in the second half. I had to make up for the first half, where I didn’t show up.”

With Oroszova out for most of the first half, freshman point guard Grace Lennox said the other post players that came in stepped up.

“It was nothing else we did differently,” she said. “It was just they were able to step up and take Sabi’s position and do what they needed to do without getting too many fouls or turning the ball over.”

Trailing by seven points with about nine minutes left to play in the second half, the Panthers would go on a 10-3 run to tie the game with five minutes to go.

Oroszova led that run for the Panthers, scoring six out of the 10 points and would continue to pace the Panthers throughout the final minutes of the game.

She would knock down a three with 4:48 left in the second half to give the Panthers a one point advantage and added five more points to push the lead up to six with under two minutes to go.

Lennox would add four more points off free throws to push the Panther lead up to 10 with 33 seconds left in the second half to ice the game.

Oroszova wasn’t the only one to post double figures in the game on Saturday. Four other players hit double figures as well including, Bh’rea Griffin with 11 points, Erica Brown with 11, Arnisha Thomas with 10 and Lennox with 11.

That was the second time that Eastern had five players score in double figures since Debbie Black has been head coach of the Panthers.

She said her team has been putting in the extra work over Winter Break in order to better their shooting and it paid off in Saturday’s win.

“Sometimes you have to remind the kids to put the work in,” she said. “If we can establish that we are not a one-dimensional team, it is going to be hard to play us. I thought the people that came off the bench did a great job too. We are building to get better in March.”

The Panthers shot 27-of-56 from the floor and 9-of-16 from the 3-point line, which is most three’s they have made in the entire season.

With defeating one of the teams that is expected to finish in the top two in the Ohio Valley Conference, Oroszova said this win is huge, especially coming off a loss.

“Especially after a loss two days ago, we needed this,” she said. “There is not an obvious leader in this conference, so it can be anyone. If we keep playing like we did (Saturday) we can be in first. It is pretty much open.”

Belmont shot 48 percent in the loss and was held to just 15-of-33 shooting in the second half, but did have five players score in double figures.

Sierra Jones went 5-of-12 from the floor and scored a team-high 15 points on the day. Jordyne Luffman shot 4-of-7 from the floor and scored 11 points.

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