By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

MACOMB, Ill. — Western Illinois’ women’s basketball team won’t be back at Western Hall for a while.

But the Leathernecks leave for a four-game road trip at the top of the Ohio Valley Conference standings.

Mia Nicastro scored 25 points as the Leathernecks defeated Tennessee Tech 77-60 on Saturday.

Western Illinois, 13-2 overall, is tied for the OVC lead with Southern Indiana with a 5-1 league mark. The Leathernecks’ upcoming road trip will end with a January 24 game against the Screaming Eagles.

“I think this win, more than any others we probably had, has kind of shown that we are here to compete,” Nicastro said. “We’re here to be at the top of the league, earn a top seed in the conference tournament, and we’re not going to stop.”

Tennessee Tech (10-5, 3-3) started this week among the teams tied for the conference lead, but this loss as well as Thursday’s defeat at Eastern Illinois, knocked the Golden Eagles into a tie for sixth place.

Western Illinois took a 43-27 lead into halftime, suffered through a bit of a slump in the third quarter, then dominated the final 10 minutes.

“That’s a really good basketball team,” Western Illinois coach JD Gravina said. “I think they were definitely one of the preseason favorites to win it and just to play the way we played first half was kind of unbelievable, and it gives us that confidence that we can play at that championship level.”

“Our momentum started from the tipoff,” said guard Allie Meadows, who had 10 points. “I thought that was the fastest we played in months.”

Western Illinois shot 66.7% in the first half, 76.9% in the second quarter.

“Something to really take away from this game is how strong we came out in the first half,” Nicastro said. ” I think that’s kind of something we’ve been struggling with recently. We were just fired up from the start. I thought every single person contributed eventually, and played their role perfectly in the first half.”

Tennessee Tech, though, outscored the Leathernecks 18-11 in the third quarter, with Western Illinois making only 3 of 10 shots. The Golden Eagles got to within 54-48 early in the fourth quarter before the Leathernecks went on a 19-3 run, holding Tennessee Tech without a field goal for seven minutes.

“Going into halftime with that big of lead, you have a little wiggle room,” Meadows said. “They were obviously going to come out really hard in the third quarter, but we had a big enough lead where we were able to make a few mistakes but still be able to handle it.”

“You knew they were going to make a run at us,” Gravina said. “They got aggressive and hit some shots, and we dropped our intensity a little bit. We were trying to thread a needle, not playing in space, and we got a little sloppy. But the good thing is they didn’t get closer than six, and we hit a couple of big shots and got refocused.”

Mallory Shetley had 14 points and Addi Brownfield had 11 for the Leathernecks — a balance Gravina is appreciating as his team continues to play without Raegan McCowan, a first-team All-OVC pick and the team’s leading scorer the last two seasons. McCowan, out with an injury to her left elbow, likely won’t be back playing until the Leathernecks return home for a January 29 game against Southeast Missouri State.

“Now we have this brutal stretch,” Gravina said. “I’d love to go on this stretch with Reagan and go to battle, but you’ve got to take it one game at a time. Every team (in the OVC) has that stretch that they have four away games in a row and and we won’t have her for any of those four, so we’re going to kind of keep seeing what we’re made of. But I love how we’re playing.”

“We definitely have that target on our back,” Meadows said. “But I think going into these away games, we’re going to have to make sure we bring our defense. Everything starts with our defense, and our offense flows in to it. We have to make sure we keep playing how we’ve been playing.”