Otahkians buck Muleriders early with 14-0 start

Saturday's women's basketball game between Southeast Missouri State University and visiting Southern Arkansas was basically decided in the opening five minutes.

The Otahkians scored the night's first 14 points during that stretch and were never threatened during a 84-57 romp that saddled the Division II Muleriders with their first loss of the season.

Southeast evened its record at 3-3 by posting its second straight victory. Southern Arkansas fell to 5-1.

"We got off to a great start and that was a big key," said junior center Chandra Brown, the Copi-Rite player of the game after scoring 15 points.

Senior guard Kenja White led the Otahkians with 17 points and junior guard Sami Jo Cotton added 10.

Junior forward Miah Shelford scored nine points and grabbed six rebounds; sophomore guard Tiffanne Ryan hit three of four 3-pointers and scored nine points; senior forward Yashika Sidbury added eight points and a game-high nine rebounds; and senior point guard Sarah Costello dished out a team-high five assists.

"I thought Miah really got on the boards and fought, and Tiffanne came in and did a really good job," Southeast coach B.J. Smith said.

Cotton scored nine of the Otahkians' points during that game-opening 14-0 run. By the time the Muleriders finally got on the board five minutes into the contest, they were already in a deep hole.

"We came out strong," Cotton said. "We wanted to jump on them early."

Big lead at halftime

Southeast led 49-23 at halftime, thanks in large part to 51.5-percent shooting (17 of 33), including a sizzling 70 percent from 3-point range (seven of 10). Brown had 12 first-half points.

The Otahkians scored the first basket of the second half to go up 51-23 for their biggest lead of the contest. The Muleriders kept battling and pulled to within 56-42 midway through the period but got no closer as Southeast won going away.

"Our intensity dropped a lot in the second half," Brown said. "We just need to play a whole 40 minutes."

Smith felt much the same way about the performance.

"I thought the first half was really good. Southern Arkansas is a good Division II team, but we really got on them early," Smith said. "But we just lost a lot of intensity in the second half. We've talked about putting two good halves together."

Southeast wound up shooting 46.6 percent for the game (27 of 58) and had only eight turnovers. Southern Arkansas shot 44.2 percent (23 of 52) and had 16 turnovers.

Valeri Turner led the Muleriders with 17 points. Brooke Grigsby had 14 and Kim Davis added 13.