MADISON, Wis. – The Edgewood College women's basketball team kicked off the 2010-11 with a well earned victory over Elmhurst College. The Eagles used timely three-point shooting and Sadie Ewing iced the 64-58 victory, scoring the Eagles' final seven points from the free throw line.

The Blue Jays (0-1) jumped out and took an early 2-0 lead before Melanie Walker came right back down the court and tied the game when she took a pass from Amber Hemp and drilled a jumper. Walker then put the Eagles ahead with another jumper two minutes later.

Edgewood College (1-0) then pushed the lead to five before Elmhurst came back and tied the game at seven. With 8:39 left in the first half, the Eagles earned their largest lead of the game, nine points, when Shae Beckwith drilled one of her four three-point field goals of the contest. Beckwith finished the game with 14 points and was 4-for-4 from three-point range.

Elmhurst then began to chip away at the lead and earned their second and final lead of the game with 3:36 left in the first half after Kim Schwerdtmann made a layup. Brittany Bylsma put the Eagles ahead with a layup and free throw before Danielle Dixon stretched the lead to four with a jump shot. The Blue Jays' Megan Ney hit a jumper with 21 seconds left in the half to cut the deficit to 33-31 at halftime.

In the second half, the Eagles never led by more than six points, but whenever the Blue Jays got close the Eagles hit a big bucket to stretch the lead. With 8:21 remaining, Elmhurst cut the deficit to two points on a pair of Schwerdtmann free throws, although Beckwith answered with a three-point basket to push the lead back to five. Right after that Meghan Merklein converted a three-point play to cut the Eagle lead back to just two points. However the Eagles answered again, this time it was Ewing that hit a three-point shot and the lead grew back to five points.

With 5:22 left, Stephanie Mitchell pulled the Blue Jays within a point when she hit a jumper in the paint, but just like earlier Beckwith answered. Only 20 seconds later, she drilled a three-pointer to push the lead back to four. From that point on the Eagles shot free throw after free throw. Walker hit a pair before Ewing hit seven in row, the last coming with 19 seconds left to seal the 64-58 victory.

Ewing and Walker set career-highs in points with 16 and 11, respectively. Ewing's 16 points led all scorers and she was 9-for-11 from the free throw line. Bylsma came within one rebound of tying her career-high, grabbing a game-high 10 boards. The Eagles shot a blistering 75 percent (6-for-8) from three-point range and shot 64 percent (16-for-25) from the charity stripe.

Elmhurst shot 41.2 percent (7-for-17) from the free throw line and Ney led the Blue Jays with 13 points and seven rebounds.

Edgewood College will be in action on Friday and Saturday when they travel to the Ripon College Tournament. The Eagles will play UW-La Crosse on Friday night at 6:00 p.m. and UW-Stout on Saturday at 1:00 p.m.