By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

MACOMB, Ill. — The double-double duo of Raegan McCowan and Mia Nicastro was the perfect counter to the 3-point barrage Western Illinois faced in Saturday’s 94-82 win over SIU-Edwardsville at Western Hall.

McCowan had 27 points and 10 rebounds, while Nicastro had 23 points and 10 rebounds, which offset the 15 3-pointers of the Cougars.

“That’s the difference,” Western Illinois coach JD Gravina said.

McCowan and Nicastro had every point in the 12-2 run to start the fourth quarter that gave the Leathernecks (12-9 overall, 6-6 Ohio Valley Conference) a 78-71 lead.

“I think Mia and I are playing so well together right now, it’s hard to stop us,” McCowan said.

The win closed a 3-1 homestand for the Leathernecks, who are tied with UT-Martin for fifth place in the OVC standings, a big boost as the season heads into the final weeks. Western Illinois, which lost to Little Rock to open the home stretch, defeated conference leader Eastern Illinois on Thursday, sandwiched between wins over Southeast Missouri State and SIUE, teams below the Leathernecks in the standings.

“I think the way the scheduling played out, it was pretty timely for us, having back-to-back home games the last two weeks with who we played,” McCowan said. “Those are people that you want home around this time of the season. And so I think that might have played a little part in it. But I also think, too, we all collectively decided as a team that we’re getting close to the end and it’s time to buckle down.”

“I think we got everything out of these four games that we wanted,” Nicastro said. “We lost to Little Rock right off the bat, but we showed we could play with a really aggressive, really tough, really physical team. This week we beat EIU, the first-place team in the conference, and then we beat a pretty good SIUE team. This was a huge win for us.”

SIUE (4-17, 2-10) hit the Leathernecks with 11 3-pointers in the first half, while Nicastro and McCowan combined for just 17 points.

“My halftime speech was me walking into the locker room, clapping,” Gravina said. “I said, ‘Give (SIUE) a round of applause, because they played tremendous in the half.’”

The Leathernecks, though, were only down 46-41 because of key contributions from different players. Addi Brownfield had 10 of her 15 points in the first half. Jasmine Nichols came off the bench to score five of her seven points in the first half, and Kennedy Flanagan had five points. All of Flanagan’s points came in the first 1:30 of the second quarter, countering back-to-back 3-pointers from Kendal George and KK Rodriguez.

“The baskets by Kennedy and Jasmine really kept us in the game in the first half,” Gravina said.

“They both came off the bench and contributed immediately,” Nicastro said. “They hit big shots in the first half, and those were shots I wasn’t hitting. They picked up the slack for me, and that’s all you can ask from a teammate. I am proud of them, and really impressed with what they did.”

SIUE’s 3-point shooting eventually cooled. The Cougars were just 4 of 13 in 3-pointers in the second half, and they shot 25 percent in the fourth quarter as the Leathernecks outscored them 28-13.

“Our defense kept us in that ballgame,” McCowan said. “They were shooting an outrageous percentage in the first half. And I think, if they kept it up, we might be in a little bit of trouble, but we knew, most likely, they wouldn’t keep that up. We showed a lot of grit in the second half. We said after the Eastern Illinois game we wouldn’t have any excuses anymore, and now we know that for sure.”

“Any team that comes out firing is usually going to cool off a bit in the second half,” Nicastro said. “But I really credit our guards for adjusting to their style of play. We’ve been defending a lot of attacking and driving teams lately, and so I think we had to take a moment to kind of adjust to a team that’s shooting it well, and I think we did a great job of changing our defensive strategy as the game went on.”

Rodriguez led SIUE with 19 points. Ava Gugliuzza had 18.

The Leathernecks head into a road trip to play Tennessee State on Thursday and UT-Martin on Saturday with a confidence built with two strong weeks at home.

“February is when you want to be playing your best basketball,” McCowan said. “And I think we’re on a steady trail up.”