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CHARLESTON, Ill. – A strong opening 12 minutes put the Southeast Missouri women's basketball team on top of league-leading Eastern Illinois, but a 17-3 Panther run put the Redhawks behind for good in a 74-48 Ohio Valley Conference loss on Wednesday night.
Southeast drops to 5-18 overall and 2-8 in OVC play while EIU is 18-4 and a league-leading 9-0 against league foes.
“I was happy at spurts with the team's effort,” Southeast head coach
Ty Margenthaler said. “We executed some nice sets in the motion and played good defense at points early. The thing that hurt was we got into foul trouble early and it caught up with us in the second half.”
The Redhawks scored the game's first four points on a
Brittany Harriel jumper and two
Bianca Beck free throws. The Panthers followed with four-straight points of their own to tie it up and then the teams traded baskets three times in a row, leading to a 10-10 score.
Courtney Shiffer broke the tie by recovering from a turnover to post a steal of her own under the offensive basket and making a layup to put the Redhawks ahead 12-10 nearly six minutes in.
Eastern Illinois took its first lead of the game with 9:46 remaining in the opening stanza after a three-point play by Katlyn Payne. Shiffer banked home a jumper a minute and a half later to put Southeast back in front, 18-17, and
Allyson Bradshaw dialed from three-point land to make it a four-point Redhawk lead with less than eight minutes to go in the first half.
The Panthers dug in defensively from there, holding the Redhawks to only three points over the last 7:50 of the opening frame and finishing the first half on a 17-3 run to take a 34-24 lead into the locker room at halftime. Southeast shot 43.5 percent in the opening frame while EIU hit 36.7 percent of its shots, but 12 Redhawk turnovers proved costly in the opening 20 minutes.
Southeast outscored EIU 7-1 in the first minute and a half of the second half, cutting the deficit to four points at 35-31. Foul trouble dealt Southeast a tough blow as
Bianca Beck picked up her fourth whistle with 16:19 left on the clock, sending the senior point guard to the bench. The Panthers took advantage, outscoring the Redhawks 8-0 over the next three minutes to push their lead to 47-31 with 13:13 to go, their largest lead to that point.
EIU's lead grew to 20 points with 8:37 remaining and Southeast would not get any closer than 16 points the rest of the way.
Shiffer scored 13 points to lead Southeast, her fourth double-figure effort in the last five games. Harriel and
Bailie Roberts were also in double digits with 11 points and Roberts contributed a team-high eight rebounds.
Three EIU players scored in double figures, led by Ta'Kenya Nixon's 24 points. Mariah King poured in 13 points and nine rebounds while Sydney Mitchell scored 12 points.
Eastern Illinois shot 46.7 percent in the second half to finish 41.7 percent from the floor overall. Southeast countered with 40.0 percent shooting. EIU held a 43-29 advantage in rebounding and made 22-of-26 free throws (84.6 percent) against Southeast's 6-of-16 (37.5 percent) mark. The Panthers made 2-of-8 three-pointers (25.0 percent) and the Redhawks hit 2-of-13 (15.4 percent) from beyond the arc.
The Redhawks return home on Saturday when they host Tennessee State at the Show Me Center. Opening tipoff is at 5:30 p.m.
