OTAHKS STUMBLE AT HOME

Things were bad enough for Southeast Missouri State University's women's basketball team during last weekend's road trip to Tennessee, when the Otahkians lost two games by a combined 56 points.

But those defeats came against Austin Peay and Tennessee State, two of the best teams in the Ohio Valley Conference.

Thursday night, things got a whole lot worse for Southeast. Playing their first OVC home game, the Otahkians were routed 66-53 by Tennessee-Martin -- the squad picked to finish last in the 10-team conference.

The Otahkians fell to 2-8 overall and 0-3 in OVC play. The Skyhawks are now 3-7 overall, 2-0 in league play.

Granted, the Skyhawks have been playing well, as evidenced by their recent OVC upset of Murray State. But Southeast coach Ed Arnzen couldn't help but be surprised and disappointed by his team's lopsided setback at the Show Me Center.

"I don't know how this team has disintegrated so quickly," said Arnzen, whose squad trailed by 25 points in the second half. "Never in my wildest dreams could I have envisioned us being 25 points behind to this club.

"Going into the year, I thought we had enough talent to do well. But now, our confidence is just stripped."

Conversely, UTM co-head coach Kim Van Atta, who directs the Skyhawks with her husband Gary Van Atta, was as pleased as could be.

"It's a really good win for us," she said. "We came back from Christmas, we were off of school and we had three-a-day practices. That made a big difference conditioning wise and confidence wise."

Zabrina Harris led a balanced UTM scoring attack with 16 points. She also pulled down a game-high 12 rebounds. Also scoring in double figures were Becky Crowe (13), Janelle Thornton (11) and Christy Hicks (10).

Southeast got a game-high 23 points from Jamie Koester, who hit nine of 19 shots from the field. Koester also grabbed 11 rebounds. But no other Otahkian scored more than seven points and the players besides Koester combined to hit just 10 of 34 shots.

The Otahkians actually played fairly well for much of the first half and they took a 29-26 lead on a basket by Stephanie Faith with 5:28 left before halftime.

But then came the critical stretch of the game. Southeast failed to score over the final 5:28 of the opening half as UTM went on an 11-0 run to lead 37-29 at the intermission.

Southeast also didn't score for the first 3:08 of the second half, by which time the Otahkians trailed 42-29.

"The last several minutes of the first half really hurt us," Arnzen said. "We were leading 29-26 and we had about five straight possessions where we turned the ball over and didn't even get a shot off."

Kim Van Atta had praise for her team's defense.

"We told our players from the very beginning that we don't have a lot of shooters on the team, but anybody can play defense," she said.

UTM's biggest lead of the game was 58-33. After that, the Otahkians never got closer than the final 13-point margin.

Next up for the Otahkians will be a Saturday night home game against Eastern Kentucky, one of the OVC's top teams. Arnzen said all Southeast can do is remain positive and keep working hard.

"I know if you quit, that's not the answer," he said. "I'm too competitive for that. I hope our players are. We just have to get back up."