January 25, 2005

LA GRANDE, Ore. - It will be another night of exciting basketball at The "Q", Quinn Coliseum, as the Mountaineer women and men will host Concordia University beginning at 5:30 pm.

With a win tonight, head coach Anji Weissenfluh will take one step closer to the all-time coaching wins record held by her coach, Sharon Campbell.  Weissenfluh currently has 80, just five shy of Campbell's mark.

However, Weissenfluh will be the first to point out that a win tonight will get the Mountaineers back into a tie with Oregon Tech for the Cascade Collegiate Conference lead at 10-1.  The Owls are idle this evening.

The Mountaineers will also look to extend a streak of 12-straight regular-season CCC wins on the Quinn Coliseum hardwood.  Eastern has also won 15-straight at home against conference teams, including playoffs.  In fact, EOU has been victorious in 18 of their last 19 games against the other nine members of the Cascade Conference in La Grande.

Concordia's women come into tonight's game sporting a 5-5 record in Conference play and 11-9 record overall.  Last weekend, Concordia defeated Southern Oregon 80-67 after a 73-37 shellacking at Oregon Tech.  That win a Southern broke a four-game on-court losing streak for the Lady Cavs.  In the middle of the streak, Concordia had the benefit of a non-playing forfeit from Cascade College.

The men's game will have some significance to it when the Cavaliers and Mountaineers take the floor at 7:30.  Both teams are currently tied for the eighth and final playoff spot with identical 2-8 records.  If the playoffs were to start today, that team would get to travel to Ashland for a first-round date with Southern Oregon.

Eastern looks to break a string of six losses, including a triple overtime to then No.-2 Western Baptist and a last second heartbreaker to Evergreen last Saturday.

Concordia will bring their own four-game losing streak to La Grande, including a last-second (81-79) loss at Oregon Tech last Friday.

The women game can be heard locally on KEOL radio (91.7 FM) and a link to the broadcast can be found at www.eou.edu/athletics.  As always, live stats will be available from the same link.