Late cold stretch moves SEMO to an 0-2 conference record

The SEMO women’s basketball was defeated by the Morehead State Eagles, 64-61 on Sunday at the Show Me Center. With the loss, the Redhawks fall to an 0-2 record in the Ohio Valley Conference.

SEMO came out hot in the first quarter, strong defense and points in the paint gave them an early 13-4 lead at the first media timeout. MSU stepped up on both ends of the court, going on a 5-3 run to close the gap 16-9 after the first quarter.

The Eagles jumped out on a 13-6 run to start the second quarter, tying the game 22-22 and forcing the Redhawks into a timeout. The run continued as good defense by MSU caused the SEMO offense to struggle, and the Eagles led 31-25 at the half.

Redhawks head coach Rekha Patterson said the team just did not defend as well in the second quarter and the Eagles defense disrupted SEMO’s offense.

“In the first quarter we were defending really, really well … the second quarter was the complete opposite. They were able to dribble, penetrate, and get to the rim. They also got free throws as well and there were a couple of times that we fouled when it was less than 10 on the shot clock,” Patterson said. “But I'd say the biggest difference, I think our offense when they [MSU] went to a two-three zone that just got in our head, unfortunately, and it took us a while to move beyond that.”

The offense of the Redhawks came out in the third able to score much easier, but they could not stop MSU on defense. The Eagles pushed their lead to 42-34 and forced SEMO to take another timeout. After the timeout, the Redhawks managed to close the gap a bit but still trailed 49-43 headed into the fourth.

SEMO started the final quarter on a 7-2 run to shrink the lead to one-point, 51-50 and MSU used a timeout of their own. The Redhawks took a brief lead before a 6-2 Eagle run gave them a 57-52 lead and forced SEMO into their final 30-second timeout.

The Redhawks were unable to make a dent in the lead as they went cold on offense for about three minutes. SEMO came out of the slump during the final minute, closing the gap to just two points at 63-61. MSU managed to hold off the Redhawks' late fourth-quarter rally to take the victory.

Patterson said sophomore Alecia Doyle took control during their rally and she was proud of how her team responded.

“I thought we had a push, they looked up and I think Alecia said in the timeout ‘Wait, what are we down? It's six, that's nothing, we can do this’ and we had to play her at the point. We felt like that was the best way for us to get looks on offense and get what we wanted,” Patterson said. Sometimes that took her out of a scoring opportunity which sucks but they just wanted to compete and win and I think Alicia’s composure and her grit is what helped the team kind of fall in line with what she was doing.”

SEMO will travel to Western Illinois on Thursday at 5 p.m. to take on the Leathernecks.