Gonzaga women hope to rebound against Eastern Washington in Cheney for nonconference finale

Tuesday night’s game at Reese Court comes with no shortage of storylines.

For one thing, the Gonzaga women are coming off Sunday’s rare nonconference loss at UC Davis, in which they blew a 15-point third-quarter lead.

“Very frustrating,” GU senior captain Melody Kempton said after practice Monday afternoon.

The Zags hope to take out their frustration on Eastern Washington. The Eagles are only 2-7, but clearly improving; it showed last weekend at the Husky Classic, when they took host Washington to the limit.

On a personal level, Tuesday’s game is a reunion of coach and player. GU’s Lisa Fortier, a northern California native, got her collegiate start at Butte Community College.

Her coach? Joddie Gleason, the same person she’ll face Tuesday night.

Fortier had committed to play in the fall of 1999 for another coach, but stuck with Butte as Gleason took over.

“She was tough on us and she always let me know when I wasn’t doing things right,” said Fortier, who started at guard as a freshman until tearing an ACL.

Gleason, a young coach at the time, remembers Fortier as the gritty player “who would always take the charge and get right up.”

“I have to apologize to Lisa, because I was really tough on her,” Gleason said.

There was no offense taken, because they’ve been friends ever since.

Fortier went on play at Cal State Monterey Bay, graduated in 2004 and eventually joined the Gonzaga staff under Kelly Graves. That same year, Gleason took over at Division II Humboldt State and became that school’s winningest coach.

In 2016, she and her husband, Skip, went on to work as assistants at Seattle University – yet another parallel with the Lisa and Craig Fortier, a former assistant with the men’s program at Eastern.

“We’re still good friends,” Lisa Fortier said.

On top of that, they’ve managed to raise families while coaching – no easy feat during road trips.

Tuesday’s game will be the shortest road trip of the year for the Zags, who will board a bus for the 20-mile trip to Cheney and a 6 p.m. tipoff.

Gonzaga (8-3) is still a clear favorite, but the gap may be smaller than it seemed only a few weeks ago. The Zags have dropped two of their last three, blowing double-digit leads against Washington State and UC Davis.

“We’ve been talking about that a lot,” Kempton said. “Going into the half, I woudn’t say we get cocky, but we just kind of let up.”

“We can’t let that happen again,” Kempton said.

The Eagles are getting 17 points per game out of freshman Jaydia Martin. Another freshman, point guard Andie Zylak out of Lewis and Clark High School, ranks ninth in the Big Sky Conference with 3.3 assists per game.

“We’re a different team today than we were a month ago,” said Gleason, who took over this year for the fired Wendy Schuller. “We’re not there yet, but we’re making progress,” Gleason said.

Gonzaga already has wins over Big Sky teams Montana State, Montana and Idaho State. GU has faced, picking up wins over Montana State, Montana and Idaho State.

Kaylynne Truong is averaging 12.4 points for GU, which ranks 12th in Division 1 with a plus-11.6 rebounding margin.

In the program’s most recent meeting in 2020, Gonzaga beat Eastern in the Kennel, 84-44.

The Zags haven’t lost to the Eagles since 2004 at the Spokane Arena, 72-69.