OTAHKIANS MAKE OVC TOURNAMENT DESPITE LOSS

CHARLESTON, Ill. -- Southeast Missouri State University's women's basketball team ended the regular season by losing its last six OVC games.

But thanks to Tennessee State the Otahkians - despite a 72-54 loss to Eastern Illinois Saturday afternoon -- were able to back into the OVC Tournament

The Otahkians (8-18, 5-13 OVC) claimed the eighth and final tournament spot in the 10-team league by virtue of Tennessee State's win over Murray State on Saturday.

Southeast and Murray tied for eighth, but the Otahkians won the tie-breaker because of an earlier victory over Eastern Illinois.

Since Southeast and Murray split their two games this year the next tie-breaking procedure is how each squad fared against the conference's top teams.

The Otahkians and Lady Racers each lost both their meetings with Eastern Kentucky, Tennessee Tech, Tennessee-Martin and Middle Tennessee -- the league's top four finishers -- but Southeast beat fifth-place EIU once while Murray lost twice to the Panthers.

So Southeast will visit powerhouse Eastern Kentucky for a first-round OVC tournament game Tuesday night. The top-seeded Lady Colonels thrashed the Otahks 97-58 earlier in Richmond, Ky.

"We obviously didn't want it this way, but we must have earned it because we're in the tournament," said Southeast coach Ed Arnzen. "If you don't have a chance you obviously can't win. Any coach worth their meal money wants an opportunity.

To beat Eastern Kentucky, Southeast will certainly have to play extremely well, but they wanted the chance to go down there and play.

Qualifying for the OVC tournament was just about the only good news Saturday for the Otahkians, who fell behind 13-0 early and never really posed a serious challenge to the Lady Panthers (12-14, 10-8).

"We didn't execute; we missed a lot of easy shots; and we didn't get back defensively," said Arnzen.

Jamie Koester scored 12 points while Shauna Cook added 11 as Southeast's only double-figure scorers.

Koester also pulled down 12 rebounds while Moniek Campbell had eight assists.

EIU got 24 points from Gordova, 21 from Aldrich, and 13 from Allison Lee.

As in the earlier meeting with EIU, which Southeast won 48-41 at the Show Me Center on Jan. 24, the Otahks suffered through a scoring drought to begin the game. But this time they could not recover.

In the earlier meeting, Southeast failed to score in the first 10 minutes, but trailed just 10-2. That allowed the Otahks to rally in what turned out to be a sluggish, sloppy game.

Saturday, the Otahkians did not score during the first 4:10 as the Lady Panthers came out hot and built a 13-0 lead.

The Otahkians managed to hang around for the rest of the half, pulling to within seven points several times. After EIU had opened as much as a 15-point lead, Southeast sank a long 3-pointer at the buzzer to make it 42-34.

But the second half was all EIU, which led by as many as 22 points and coasted to victory.