The Eastern women’s basketball team will be on the road for the sixth-straight game Wednesday when they travel to play Loyola-Chicago. 

The Panthers are 5-4 on the season and are coming off an 87-81 win over Northern Illinois in the third-place game at the Compass Tournament. 

Loyola is 5-3 so far this season and lost its last game 72-62 to Vermont on Dec. 5. That loss snapped a four-game winning streak for the Ramblers. 

This will be the 19th meeting all time between the Panthers and Ramblers. The series is tied at 9-9 and Loyola won the last matchup between the two programs 67-51 on Nov. 13, 2019. That game was hosted by Eastern. 

Several of the top performers from that game will face off once again. 

The leading scorer in the game two seasons ago was Loyola guard Janae Gonzales, who is now a senior for the Ramblers. 

Gonzales scored 24 points on 8-of-14 shooting, including 7-of-12 from three-point range. 

She is third on the Ramblers in scoring averaging 8.9 points per game while shooting 39.6 percent from three. 

The Ramblers’ second-leading scorer in that game was forward Kat Nolan with 13 points and seven rebounds off the bench. Nolan is now a graduate student and has played just two minutes in one game this season. 

Leading the Ramblers in scoring this season is sophomore guard Maya Chandler with 11.5 points per game. 

The Ramblers’ second-leading scorer this season is forward Allison Day, averaging 10.9 points and leading the team with 6.6 rebounds per game. She scored six points with 2 rebounds in the game against Eastern in 2019. 

Eastern’s leading scorer in that game was guard Karle Pace, now a graduate player at Austin Peay, with 17 points.

Guard Lariah Washington was second on the team with 14 points in what was the third game of her freshman season. 

Now a junior, Washington is currently leading the team with 15.2 points per game. 

Senior forward Abby Wahl, the Panthers’ second-leading scorer this season, scored just four points in the Loyola game two seasons ago. 

The only other current Panther players that were on the roster for that game, Jordyn Hughes, Morgan Litwiller and Kira Arthofer, combined for nine points in the game. 

Arthofer is third on the team in scoring this season, averaging 10.7 points per game, while also leading the OVC with 5.4 assists per game. 

The game is scheduled to tip off at 7 p.m.

Adam Tumino can be reached at 581-2812 or ajtumino@eiu.edu.