The Eastern women’s basketball teams’ two wins over Thanksgiving break led it to a 5-0 start on the season, something they have not seen in the program for the last 40 years.

As seniors Lariah Washington and Morgan Litwiller along with sophomore Macy McGlone have been leading the way for the Panthers, there have been other players on the team with strong showings in the early games of the season.

On Sun., Nov. 20, the Panthers hosted Loyola Chicago where they took the 83-73 win. The Panthers were losing 40-30 at halftime, but ultimately came out with the win as McGlone and Washington came out in the second half to put more points up in the paint as well as capitalizing on the three-point shots.

McGlone had a career high 23 points and tied a career high nine rebounds. Washington scored 13 of her 17 total points in the second half as well as capturing 7 of her 9 assists in the second half. Litwiller scored 11 points and had six rebounds.

Sophomore Taris Thornton and junior Hannah Purcell came off the bench and put up a combined 17 points and three assists.

On Tues., Nov. 22, the Panthers headed up to Chicago to capture an 87-64 at Chicago State.

The Panthers held Chicago State to a 51-17 lead going into halftime. Players off the bench played for a majority of the second half for EIU.

That being said, Thornton lead the Panthers with 15 points and behind her was McGlone with 14 as she shot a perfect 6-for-6.

Juniors Haley Cameron, Emily Meidel, and Jackie Maulucci came off the bench and were able to set some career highs for themselves. Cameron tied her career high nine points, Meidel had a career high eight points and Maulucci had a career high seven points.

EIU had 22 points off turnovers, 48 bench points, 60 points in the paint, and scored 25 fast break points.

Eastern is currently the only team in the Ohio Valley Conference that has no losses and is placed 1st in the conference.

EIU is first in the league for offensive rebounds as they have grabbed a total of 198, which averages out to 39.6 per game as McGlone leads the conference with 3.0 per game. They also lead when it comes to defensive rebounding as they have grabbed 141, which averages out to 28.2 per game as Washington and Litwiller are both tied for 4th with 4.8 per game.

Washington is second in the OVC in scoring as she is averaging 17.6 per game.

EIU has three players in the top ten in the OVC for rebounding: McGlone at 5th with 6.6 per game, Litwiller at 6th with 6.2 per game and Washington at T-7th with 6.0 per game.

McGlone has the second-best field goal percentage in the OVC with .574 and sophomore Miah Monahan leads the league in assists with 6.0 per game.

The team has another month of nonconference play before they open up the OVC games at the end of December.

EIU will next play on Saturday afternoon as they host Northern Illinois at Lantz Arena at 3:30 p.