Southeast drops two at Eastern Illinois, Bowen and Bell make scoring waves

Another road doubleheader ended in another pair of losses for Southeast Basketball.

Both the women’s and men’s squads traveled for a road tilt at Eastern Illinois on Thursday night. When the early goings turned sour, they never sweetened as both squads lost by nearly 20 points.

The rough Ohio Valley Conference slate continues for both Redhawks teams, with both now sitting below the conference tournament cut-off line.

The Southeast women are in a tie for eighth but sit ninth in the conference table as is, coming in with a 4-9 record with just five games to go.

The men, meanwhile, have sunken to 10th in the Ohio Valley Conference. Possessing a meager record of 3-10 in league play.

Both teams will need a big turnaround in the late season to grab a conference tourney berth, still with some solid teams on the schedule.

The Redhawk women (7-17, 4-9 OVC) began the night, as they frequently have recently, in a hole that they couldn’t escape as Eastern Illinois (11-15, 8-5 OVC) took an impressive 71-52 victory.

By the start of the second half, the Panthers’ lead had already grown to 20-plus points, outracing the Redhawks and flying to the big win on home floor.

For the Redhawks, freshman Indiya Bowen emerged as a bright side, at least, scoring a cool 20 points on 50 percent shooting from the field.

She’s now averaging 19 points per game over the last two outings, putting in 18 in a 48-47 win against Tennessee State last weekend.

Alecia Doyle made some big contributions with a 10-point, 7-rebound night for the Redhawks, but couldn’t hold off a storming Panther offense.

But Eastern Illinois’ scoring proved to be the difference, finishing the night with three double-digit scorers and a whopping 41.9 percent clip from 3-point range.

That mark was more than 20 percent better than SEMO’s night from outside, hitting just 21.4 percent of its 3-pointers.

It’s not always the shooting that dooms a team, but it certainly didn’t help in Southeast’s case on Thursday.

Panning over to the men’s game, the flow tells a similar tale as the Panthers came out the gate firing and blew past SEMO early to mount a big lead.

The Southeast men (8-18, 3-10 OVC) fell into a 15-point halftime deficit, never recovering and eventually succumbing in a 75-57 loss to Eastern Illinois (12-14, 6-7 OVC).

It got as close as 10 points in the second half, but SEMO had the firepower to keep up with the Panthers on Thursday night in another hefty road loss.

Junior guard Kyndall Davis dropped 26 against the Redhawks on Thursday on 11-of-17 shooting and grabbed nine rebounds in the process.

The Long Island transfer piled it on and, all the while, his teammates, Corey Sawyer and Tiger Booker, put in another 15 and 11 points.

The scoring trio proved far too much for Southeast as they fell into a big hole and could never cut back into single digits in the loss.

For the Redhawks, Josh Earley continued his great season with another strong performance, scoring 15 points in the loss.

But the player of the night came off the bench on Thursday.

Freshman guard Marqueas Bell cut up the Panthers from the field, hitting 6 of 11 shots on the night and cruising to a big 17-point night outside the starting lineup.

Another of Southeast’s great freshman scorers, his performance on Thursday bodes well for the Redhawks if they want to make a run at a tournament bid.

They’ll look to keep that fire going down the stretch, and it’ll next pick up with another conference doubleheader at SIU-Edwardsville in Edwardsville, Illinois.

The women will begin the slate, tipping off at 1 p.m. with the men to follow.

It’ll be an essential two games for the Redhawks to climb back up the conference ladder.