Redhawks rally, stay in first place

~ Southeast finished 10-0 in OVC home games with a 58-52 victory.

It might have been easy for doubts to creep in as Tennessee-Martin threatened to end Southeast Missouri State's perfect Ohio Valley Conference home record.

But the Redhawks never doubted they would pull out the victory.

That's exactly what happened as Southeast, which trailed for nearly the first 35 minutes, rallied for a 58-52 win Saturday night.

"I was confident the whole time, because we always defend our home court," junior forward Missy Whitney said.

Added senior center Lachelle Lyles: "We knew sooner or later we would pull it out."

Southeast, which completed regular-season OVC play at the Show Me Center with a 10-0 mark, remained tied for first place in the league with Murray State.

The Redhawks (19-7, 14-4) have their final two conference games on the road before hosting a first-round OVC tournament contest Feb. 27.

"We take pride in it," said sophomore point guard Tarina Nixon of Southeast's home-court dominance.

UTM (14-13, 9-10), which beat Southeast 63-54 earlier this month in Martin, Tenn., raced to a pair of early 14-point leads and threatened for the longest time to sweep the season series.

Southeast, which pulled within 29-24 at halftime, still faced a sizable deficit as the Skyhawks led 47-37 with less than 10 minutes remaining.

But the Redhawks turned up the heat defensively and ended the contest with a 21-5 run.

"Coach always preaches defense," Nixon said. "It was just a matter of us going out and doing it."

The Redhawks, who lead the OVC in field-goal percentage defense at 36.8, saw UTM hit nine of its first 12 shots to build leads of 18-4 and 20-6.

UTM ended the first half shooting 56.5 percent (13 of 23), but in the second half the Skyhawks shot just 23.8 percent (five of 21) and they scored only five points over the game's final 9:41.

"They have a good team and they really executed well in the first half," Southeast acting head coach John Ishee said. "I thought we picked it up [defensively] in the second half, and especially with about 10, 11 minutes to go."

Southeast needed to pick its defense up, because the Redhawks struggled all night offensively. They shot just 29.8 percent (14 of 47), but took advantage of a big advantage from the free-throw line.

The Redhawks made 26 of 36 foul shots -- 19 of 28 in the second half -- while the Skyhawks were 12 of 14 in the game from the charity stripe.

"We were dreadful offensively," Ishee said. "But we did hit some big shots late."

Two of them came from Nixon, who made two of three 3-pointers in the game. Both came in the late going.

Nixon's first 3-pointer, with 6:09 remaining, made it 47-47 for the first tie of the contest.

Southeast took its initial lead when Lyles hit two free throws at the 5:33 mark, capping a 12-0 run that made it 49-47.

UTM went ahead one more time, 50-49, with 3:57 left, but Nixon's 3-pointer with 2:55 remaining put the Redhawks ahead for good, 52-50.

"Tarina knocked down some huge shots," Ishee said.

After Southeast forced a shot-clock violation, Whitney's basket at the 1:53 mark made it 54-50.

The Redhawks scored their final four points on free throws, with Nixon making three of four.

Whitney led Southeast with 14 points and pulled down eight rebounds.

Lyles celebrated senior night with her ninth double-double of the season, including four straight. The nation's leading rebounder at 17 per game had 11 points and 16 boards.

Sophomore guard Sonya Daugherty added 11 points and three steals. Nixon scored nine points.

"It wasn't easy," Ishee said. "But I think the game was a testament to our will to win."