Poor shooting costs SEMO in loss to Little Rock

A slow shooting night was the difference in SEMO’s 58-39 loss to the Arkansas-Little Rock Trojans on Thursday at the Show Me Center.

The Redhawks jumped out to a 17-14 lead after the first quarter but after just four points in the second quarter, they trailed 30-21 heading into the locker room at halftime.

Redhawks coach Rekha Patterson said the inability to make shots altered her team’s confidence down the stretch.

“I think it deflated us,” Patterson said. “If you’re not making shots the thing you’re supposed to do is get offensive rebounds. Having 10 (offensive rebounds) with the number of misses we had is not going to get you an opportunity to score and have a lot of success.”

Patterson felt a big issue for the Redhawks was rebounding as the Southeast was out-rebounded 42-24.

“We got punked,” Patterson said. “I don’t know how else to say it. One player had 19 and we had a total of 24. We just got punked in the paint.”

Despite the struggles rebounding, the Redhawks still held the Trojans to 37% shooting.

“They made 19 field goals and we made 16 field goals,” Patterson said. “If you tell me that’s the ball game and I look at the stats, I’m gonna tell you I think the score is going to be a whole lot closer. We did do some things pretty well defensively.”

Leading the offense for the Redhawks was Alecia Doyle with 9 points. Kori Tomlin and Jaliyah Green both had 6 points in the loss.

During halftime, SEMO celebrated their women's teams in recognition of National Girl and Women In Sports Day which was on Wednesday.

“It’s always a wonderful thing when you can celebrate women,” Patterson said. “There are a lot of girls that come to our games that look up to our players and want to be just like our players. That’s what this is about.”

The loss pushes the Redhawks to 9-13 and they will be back in action at 1 pm on Saturday, Feb. 4 when Southeast travels to take on Tennessee Tech in Cookeville, Tennessee.