OTAHKIANS PURSUE THIRD STRAIGHT CONFERENCE WIN

What Southeast Missouri State University women's basketball coach Ed Arnzen has been saying all along about the Ohio Valley Conference seems to be coming to fruition.

Arnzen believes that, after Tennessee Tech, there isn't much difference between most of the other nine OVC teams. He believes the second through eighth or even ninth spots in the league are almost totally up for grabs.

And what happened with the Otahkians over the past week seems to be evidence of exactly what Arnzen is saying.

Last Saturday, Southeast was in a tie for eighth place in the 10-team league and looking up at a whole bunch of squads. But two wins later and the Otahkians have moved up to a tie for fifth, just one game out of fourth and only two games out of second. Needless to say, they're feeling pretty good again.

"The league is about like I thought it would be," said Arnzen. "There is Tennessee Tech and then there's everybody else. We've won two in a row and now all of a sudden we're right up there toward the top again."

The Otahkians hope to continue their upward climb in the OVC standings today when Eastern Kentucky comes to the Show Me Center for a 5:30 p.m. contest that will end Southeast's four-game homestand.

"We've won two in a row now and we really need to finish this homestand off (with another victory) before we go back out on the road again," Arnzen said.

Southeast, coming off Thursday's impressive 85-62 win over Morehead State, is 7-10 overall and 4-5 in OVC play. EKU, which lost a 102-95 double-overtime heartbreaker at Eastern Illinois Thursday, is 9-9 overall and 6-3 in the league.

EKU is tied for second place in the OVC with Murray State. Tennessee Tech, at 9-0, appears on its way to a runaway regular-season championship.

Middle Tennessee, at 5-4, is in fourth place and just one game behind EKU and Murray. Austin Peay, Tennessee-Martin and Tennessee State all join Southeast in being 4-5 and tied for fifth place. And 3-6 Eastern Illinois, although in ninth place, is still very much in the race.

"Things are really tight after Tennessee Tech," said Arnzen. "A team can gain a lot of ground with a win or two. That's what's happened to us."

As for today's game, Arnzen is concerned about EKU's offensive firepower, led by standout guard Marla Gearhart. The Lady Colonels average an OVC-best 80 points per game, although they give up just about that many to rank near the bottom of the league defensively.

Gearhart, a 5-foot-9 senior, is the OVC's leading scorer with an average of 20.1 points per game. She shoots 39 percent from 3-point range and also leads the squad in assists with 4.1 a contest.