EVANSVILLE, Ind. – #4 Southeast Missouri (14-18) ended its season with a 88-74 loss to #1 Murray State (29-2) Friday in the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament Semifinals at the Ford Center.
 
SEMO closed out its second year under Head Coach Brad Korn strong with wins in three of its final five games and claimed the program's first trip to the OVC Tournament semis for the first time in 17 years.
 
The Redhawks started slow in the first 10 minutes and couldn't recover after MSU raced out to a 17-1 lead in the first 4:03 of the contest.
 
"The first 10 minutes were just too much to overcome," said SEMO Head Coach Brad Korn. "We learned a lot this year and I often reflect on how far we came along the way. It took us awhile to get to this point and I'm proud of the strides we made. There's still a lot of hard work ahead and the future is bright for this program."
 
KJ Williams scored the first five points to send a jolt into the Racers who quickly heated up to make eight of their first nine field goals.
 
Meanwhile, SEMO missed 10 of its first 11 shots and didn't make a field goal until Nana Akenten drained a 3-pointer with 15:28 remaining in the first half. 
 
The Redhawks got within 13 on two occasions later on with the help of a pull-up jumper by Phillip Russell and a pair of free throws by DQ Nicholas.
 
MSU then scored seven of the last eight points of the half to take a 51-31 lead at the intermission. 
 
The Racers shot a blistering 65.5 percent (19-of-29) from the floor and buried seven of their first 11 three-pointers in the opening stanza. Williams (17) and Tevin Brown (21) combined for 38 of MSU's first-half points.
 
DQ Nicholas came off the bench to get 11 of his points in the first half alone.
 
SEMO settled down to play much better in the second half, where it outscored MSU, 43-37.
 
The Redhawks made a nice run down the stretch scoring 10-straight points to cut MSU's lead to 86-74, but that was as close as they would get.
 
SEMO shot 53.6 percent (15-of-28) from the field in the game's final 20 minutes after shooting under 30 percent in the first half.
 
Nicholas pitched in 20 points to lead the Redhawks. He shot 5-of-9 from the field and made 8-of-10 free throws en route to his season-high in scoring. Eric Reed, Jr. followed with 12 points and Akenten added 11.
 
Williams and Brown led the Racers with 29 and 26 points, respectively. Williams pulled down a team-high 10 rebounds too.