Southeast Missouri State women look for first OVC win at Austin Peay

The Southeast Missouri State women's basketball team didn't start the Ohio Valley Conference season the way it would've liked and is looking forward to the opportunity to turn it around this weekend.

The Redhawks (4-10, 0-1) will be trying to stop a two-game losing streak when they face Austin Peay (3-10, 0-0) at 5:15 p.m. Saturday at the Dunn Center in Clarksville, Tenn.

The Redhawks dropped their conference opener 81-74 to Belmont on Tuesday at the Show Me Center

"I feel like our team is a pretty smart team. They know where we're at," Southeast coach Ty Margenthaler said. "A lot of people ask me, 'How is the morale?' and I really feel it's pretty good. I really do.

"I feel they're a confident team for being where we're at and they really feel we can do something in this conference, and I do too."

The Redhawks were 2-0 against APSU last year with 71-57 and 69-51 victories over the Govs.

"I talked a lot about that with our team today because I want them to know that and remember that, and hopefully that will give them some confidence going into the ballgame as well," Margenthaler said, "They are a different team and have a couple new pieces to their team, but I think winning there last year -- hopefully that'll give us that good feeling when we do go back into that gymnasium Saturday afternoon."

In each of those wins a Southeast guard had a career-high scoring night. Jordan Hunter scored 21 to lead Southeast to a 14-point victory and Kara Wright scored 23 when the Redhawks won by 18 on the road. Wright raised her career high to 26 points against the University of Missouri on Nov. 21.

"I know one thing they've added this year that they have not had in the past, they've got some size," Margenthaler said. "And they're looking to score a lot more inside, and so that's something that we've been working on [Thursday] and [Friday] are just different ways that we're going to be able to defend them because their strength -- they can shoot it -- but their strength is definitely trying to get the ball inside and be physical."

Austin Peay is led in scoring by Tiasha Gray with 14.6 points per game and Kristen Stainback with 10.9.

Tearra Banks, a 6-3 freshman, has started four games for the Govs and averages 9.2 points and 5.7 rebounds. Banks has earned OVC Freshman of the Week honors twice this season.

This will be the first conference game of the season for Austin Peay, which finished 2-14 in conference a year ago.

The Govs, who have lost seven consecutive games, were picked to finish sixth in the OVC West Division in the conference's preseason poll voted on by OVC coaches and sports information directors.

"We know that this is, of course, their first game of the year in conference play and they want to get out to a good start as well," Margenthaler said. "They played Western Kentucky early in the year really well. They played Chattanooga really well. We know they've lost games in a row here lately and in our league we're all pretty much similar, quite honestly. We're going to have to play well. We know we're going to get Austin Peay's really good shot."

Both teams have played Western Kentucky, SIU Carbondale and Wichita State this season and hold a 1-2 record against those opponents. Austin Peay beat SIUC by two points in the Govs' second game of the season, while Southeast defeated the Salukis 72-50 on Dec. 4.

Both suffered losses against Wichita State and Western Kentucky. The Redhawks lost to Wichita State 67-46 and Western Kentucky 90-75. The Govs lost 86-64 to Wichita State and 78-75 to Western Kentucky.