POCATELLO — There’s a line from the movie “Forrest Gump” that perfectly describes this edition of the Idaho State women’s basketball team: “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.”

Saturday, Senior Day, in a very big game against Eastern Washington, the Bengals came out flat as they simply could not make any shots including point-blank layups. They went 3-13, 23% and trailed the Eagles 13-10.

Then they woke up. For the final three quarters ISU blistered the nets to the tune of 57% shooting, 24-42 and blew out the Eagles 75-60 at Reed Gym.

For a team that struggled badly for the first two-thirds of the season shooting the ball, they have started to find the range, win games and are peaking at the right time with one regular season game remaining before the Boise post season tournament next week.

It was Idaho State’s fourth straight win, fifth in the last six games and seventh in the last 11 played. ISU is now 13-15 on the year, 8-9 in the Big Sky. The Eagles fell to 10-19 overall and 6-11 in the league.

Like the last few weeks it was a team effort with five players again scoring in double figures led by Tasia Jordan. The senior from Chicago poured in 21 points on 9-12 shooting, capping off a week where she scored 37 points in wins over Idaho and Eastern. She continuously drove the ball down the court, stopped seemingly in full stride, elevated and hit mid-range jumpers. The Eagles had no answers for her.

But they didn’t have a lot of answers for her teammates either.

Kasey Spink had 14 points, seven rebounds, four steals and three assists, Maria Dias, honored before the game on Senior Day, had 11 points, Sophia Covello added 10 points and Piper Carlson, who started the game missing her first five shots, all lay-ups, recovered to score 10 points with five rebounds.

“We played really well,” ISU head coach Seton Sobolewski said after the game. “We missed some bunnies (lay-ups) early but we played good enough defense to keep us in the mix and then offensively we got going…Maria hit some shots, Tasia had a great day. I thought Piper did a great job rebounding after a rough start. Just a great team effort.”

A 21-point third quarter broke open a four-point halftime game and started the rout as ISU shot 9-14, 64%. Then they bettered it by dropping in 26 points in the fourth quarter. That turned out to be the fourth most points scored in an individual period this season. They shot 7-13, 53% for the final 10 minutes.

The only thing they didn’t do well on the afternoon was shoot from long distance, only hitting one three ball in 12 attempts. But the Eagles weren’t hitting from beyond the arc either.

The win gave ISU a measure of revenge for a loss in January to EWU 78-71 in overtime up in Cheney. That was a frustrating afternoon since the Bengals took a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter but turned the ball over seven times allowing Eastern back in the game. A driving layup by Ella Gallatin with 2.5 seconds left tied the game and the Eagles put it away in the extra five-minute stanza.

Saturday Eastern was led by Alexis Pettis with 13 points, Jaycee Eggers had 11 and her freshman teammate Kourtney Grossman added 10 points and 10 rebounds. Her 291 rebounds on the season set the program record for a freshman player.

The Bengals also had seven blocks and 11 steals in the game and Sobolewski was asked if physicality was the reason for it. “Great energy makes things like that happen,” he said. “If you’re playing hard, the blocks, the steals, those things will happen on their own.”

With games still to be played on Monday, the Bengals are tied with Montana for fifth place in the standings. They are still trying to not have to play an early tournament game Saturday which the bottom four teams have to do. If they finish in the top six, they don’t play until the following Monday afternoon.

ISU is at Northern Arizona Monday night. The Lumberjacks still can win a share of the regular season crown because of Montana State’s stunning loss to Sacramento State and it’s also their Senior Night, so they’ll be playing hard.

Montana meanwhile finishes the season at Eastern Washington.

If the form holds ISU should get the opportunity to play on Monday, March 10, most likely against either Idaho or Weber State in the afternoon. Montana is also in the mix as a possible opponent. This year the Bengals swept the Vandals, lost both games in overtime to the Wildcats and split their games against Montana.

In celebration and appreciation of her basketball career at ISU, the senior Dias was given a framed jersey with her number on it and honored before Saturday afternoon’s game against EWU. Dias, who came from the College of the Sequoias, has played in 58 games and has scored 528 points with 213 rebounds. Her highest scoring game came this past December when she had 26 points in a win at Missouri-Kansas City. Thanksgiving week she also had the game winner when the Bengals beat Rhode Island 52-50 in the Cancun Challenge on a layup at the buzzer. She hopes to play professionally in Europe next year while also pursuing her desire to become a sports nutritionist.

“I’m very happy for Maria,” Sobolewski said. “It always feels really good when you can get a win on Senior Day. She’s meant so much to us and our program the last two years. I’m just glad we could get her a win on her day.”

Under Sobolewski, ISU is now 11-6 in games on Senior Day.

ISU’s Monday game at Northern Arizona will be available on KISU.org streaming only with pregame coverage beginning at 5:45 p.m.