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KALAMAZOO, Mich. – One of the two teams that face off Sunday afternoon in Kalamazoo will pick up their first win of the season.  Will it be the Eastern Kentucky women’s basketball team or the host Western Michigan?

Both teams enter the game with 0-2 records.  The Lady Colonels lost by five at Xavier, a team receiving votes in the top-25 and led No. 9 Louisville in the second half before fading down the stretch in a 77-53 loss.  WMU lost at Kansas (76-64) and at Michigan State (80-45), a team receiving votes in the top-25.

EKU is the only team in the OVC to have played two games against teams ranked in the top-25 or receiving votes in the top-25.

Eastern led the Cardinals at halftime and trailed by only one with 13 minutes left to play, but UofL used a 20-3 run to pull away and defeat EKU.

In a game that featured two of last year’s best high school players in the state, EKU’s Carla Booth got the best of reigning Kentucky Miss Basketball Sara Hammond.  Booth led the Lady Colonels with 14 points on 3-of-6 shooting from behind the arc and also added four rebounds, three assists and a steal.  The freshman has led the team in scoring in each of its first two regular season games.

Booth is averaging 14.5 points per game.  Junior point guard Raechele Gray is contributing nine points and three assists per game.  Junior forward Alex Jones leads the team with an average of 8.5 rebounds per game to go along with eight points per contest.

The series between Western Michigan and EKU is tied 1-1.  Eastern won the first meeting in 1994.  The Broncos won last year in Richmond.  This will be the Lady Colonels first trip to Kalamazoo.

WMU lost three starters from last year’s 9-21 team.  Senior Miame Giden, a 5-foot-11 forward, is the team’s top returning scorer from last year.  In 2010-11 Giden averaged 11.7 points and 4.1 rebounds.

This season Western Michigan has been led by junior guard Aurielle Anderson.  Anderson only started three games last year and contributed 5.7 points per game.  Through the first two games this year she is averaging 11.5 points per contest.  Against Michigan State Anderson scored 12 points and grabbed a team-best six rebounds.  She was 3-for-8 from the field and 5-for-9 from the free throw line.

The Broncos shot just 27 percent from the field against Michigan State and made 23 percent (3-for-13) from long range.  WMU was out-rebounded by nine and committed 28 turnovers.  Through their first two games, the Broncos are averaging 25 turnovers per contest.

The last time these two teams met, Eastern Kentucky fell to Western Michigan, 66-58, on Dec. 31, 2010 at McBrayer Arena.  Brittany Coles led the Lady Colonels with what was at the time a career-best 25 points.    Jones finished with 16 points and 13 rebounds.  Giden led the Broncos with 15 points.  Forward Brenna Banktson added 14 points and 14 rebounds.

Eastern Kentucky shot just 27 percent from the field, including 22 percent from three-point range.  WMU made 43 percent of its shots.  The Lady Colonels turned the ball over only 12 times, compared to 17 for Western Michigan, but poor shooting allowed Eastern to turn the Broncos turnovers into only 16 points.  WMU finished with a two-rebound advantage, 40-38, despite 15 offensive rebounds by EKU.