SEMO women upset Western Illinois for first OVC win

Some timely buckets down the stretch led the Southeast Missouri State Redhawks to a 72-66 road win over the Western Illinois Leathernecks.

In the win, the Redhawks managed to survive allowing 41 free throws to the Leathernecks.

“I’m really proud of this group,” Redhawks coach Rekha Patterson said. “I’m really happy we could come away with a win against a really really good team.”

Entering the contest, SEMO was winless on the road and 0-2 in the OVC while Western Illinois was 8-0 at home and 1-0 in OVC play.

“Western Illinois is hard to prepare for,” Patterson said. “Winning here is hard to do and we were able to take them out of rhythm.”

The Redhawks led wire-to-wire as they raced out to a 23-14 lead after the first quarter of play.

The lead would stretch to as many as 15 in the first-half before a late run by the Leathernecks saw the Redhawks lead sit at 38-32 entering the locker room at halftime.

Perhaps the biggest difference in the game was the points off turnovers as the Redhawks scored 20 points off 19 Western Illinois turnovers and the Leathernecks scored just two points on seven Redhawks’ turnovers.

“We looked at the stats at halftime and realized we only had two turnovers,” Patterson said. “The credit goes to our players that were intentional on taking care of the basketball and getting the shots we want.”

The six-point halftime lead was cut to just three heading into the final 10 minutes of action.

Down the stretch, Southeast got big buckets from Alicia Doyle who finished with a team-high 17 points in the win.

The biggest buckets came from Jaliyah Green, who finished with 16 points, knocking down six free throws in the clutch to seal the win.

“We just believe in Jaliyah,” Patterson said. “We ran a lot of things for her against their zone and she made really good decisions. She stayed in attack mode and got to the free throw line. I know she wanted to win and wanted to do whatever to help the team win.”

The Redhawks (4-10, 1-2 OVC) return home at 5:15 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 11, when the Redhawks host Lindenwood at the Show Me Center.