Southeast Missouri State women's basketball senior Erin Bollmann leading the charge

If there's one thing that you don't want to tell Erin Bollmann it's that she isn't capable of achieving something.

If you make that mistake, the driven Bollmann, a Meadow Heights graduate and Southeast Missouri State senior, will set out to show you exactly what she can do.

"There were some coaches, people, some comments made that they just didn't really believe that I was going to be something big, and my entire life I have been trying to prove those people wrong, that I can be something no matter what I put my mind to," Bollmann said. "I always had my family pushing for me, but I was on my own for awhile just trying to like find that fire in myself to one day tell the naysayers that they had no idea what they're talking about."

Now Bollmann's readying to play her final home game against SIU Edwardsville at 6:30 p.m. today at the Show Me Center after a two-year career with the Redhawks.

She and Connor King, a Jackson graduate, will be honored before the team's "White Out Game."

Southeast Missouri State's Erin Bollmann meets resistance from UT Martin's Shy Copney during the first quarter Saturday, Jan. 24, 2016 at the Show Me Center.Fred Lynch

King laughed before saying in a sing-songy voice that Bollmann is "one of a kind."

"Honestly, she's hilarious," King said. "She is easygoing. She is fun to be around. She brings a lot of light and energy wherever she is. She has a very infectious personality."

That charisma has provided a different flavor for the Redhawks this season.

"She's very good because [senior] Olivia [Hackmann] and I are very similar," King said. "We don't get, like, really emotional. We don't get into things. And we don't tell very good jokes. She kind of brings that lightness that, like, 'OK, but we're still playing basketball and we all love this game that's fun.' I'm super serious and I don't, like, know how to relax, and Erin is the total opposite, and so I think we balance each other out well to the point where practice isn't fun and like a clown show, but it's also not like so serious that people are like, 'Oh my God, we have to go to practice today.'"

"I think that seeing people smile because of something I said is one of the greatest things I can do, so I'm a jokester," Bollmann said.

King, who's known Bollmann for years, said while the 5-foot-11 forward provides the team with laughs, she's also matured and improved immensely from her junior to senior seasons at Southeast, which in part was due to the support of the new coaching staff under Rekha Patterson.

"She exudes so much more [confidence], like, 'We can do this.' Like, 'Let's do this. Let's go out and prove people wrong,'" King said of Bollmann, "because she believes in herself, which leads her to believe in us and then we believe in us, and then it's just like a chain reaction, can't stop."

That confidence, which has spread throughout the entire team, has helped the Redhawks to a 15-12 overall record and an 8-6 Ohio Valley Conference record.

Southeast was picked last in the OVC's preseason poll, but currently sits in fifth in the standings and punched its ticket to the conference tournament for the first time since 2009.

"She very much is like, 'People say this about us or people think this about us. Let's go show them,'" King said. "She might use a few expletives in there, but that's OK. Â… But yeah, she definitely brings a swagger about her."

Patterson said that when Bollmann's playing with energy "we are a different team," and she can only imagine how much fun it is to play with someone that shows her excitement throughout the game.

"I like that we're winning, that's a big thing," Bollmann said with a laugh, "but the thing I like is I just love the energy. Like every day just coming into practice knowing that I'm going to have a smile on my face no matter what. She kind of lets us be ourselves instead of putting us to a cookie cutter of what she wants us to be. She adapts to who we are."

Part of Patterson adapting to Bollmann was finding ways to allow her to play freely and use her athleticism and long arms.

Patterson recalled a practice where she was sure a pass from freshman guard Adrianna Murphy was headed out of bounds when out of nowhere Bollmann's arm extended up to make the grab.

"It's like Go-Go Gadget -- the girls probably don't even know who that is," Patterson said.

Bollmann has averaged 11.8 points on 50.8-percent shooting, 6.5 rebounds and 1.9 steals this season. In the 13 conference games she's played in, she's shooting 55.2 percent from the field and averaging 13.5 points.

She's scored in double figures 18 times and scored a career-high 23 against SIUE the last time the teams faced off.

"She's incredibly talented," King said. "She makes a lot of plays where you just have to like shake your head and be like, 'Let her do it.' Coach P says all the time to our guards, she's like, 'Just throw the ball up and Erin will catch it,' because she's got like Go-Go Gadget arms. I don't even know where they come from. I think that's great. She's a player that not a lot of people can guard, and she's a matchup problem, which is good for us."

Patterson likened Bollmann's ability to bait teams into a turnover to a bird swooping down out of nowhere to snag something away. She said it's unusual in women's basketball that a coach can tell her players to just throw the ball up when going against a 1-3-1 or 2-3 zone, but "That's Erin."

It's not just the abilities she's been blessed with that has led to her success on the court this season. It's taken a different mentality.

It's also taken extra hours in the gym where she's worked on several things, among them free throws -- she's shooting 49.3 percent this season, up from 38.5 percent as a junior. In conference this season she's made 24 of 41 attempts (58.5 percent) after making 20 all of last year.

"I think for Erin, probably for the majority of her career, she has just been better -- better than her opponent, better than other people -- and because of her talent she's been able to do what's natural to her," Patterson said. "But then when you start to compete against young women who are just as talented as you are you have to find a way to get better. The way for her to do that is to be disciplined and have great focus."

That focus comes from Bollmann finally figuring out what her goals are in life. After switching majors a few times she plans to graduate with a degree in general studies and then try to play basketball professionally.

"I know that I want to change the world," Bollmann said. "I know that I want to be a big part of making this world a better place, but I didn't know what exactly I wanted to do to do that, and I think that just with getting back in touch with church and all this I've realized that I want to go overseas and play as long as I can to be a role model for these little girls that are watching me.

"It's insane how many girls are messaging me on Facebook and coming up to me after games telling me I'm their favorite player, they admire me. They talk to me and take pictures. That's what I play for is those girls saying that, and I want to continue building myself for a role model for someone else."

Once her playing days are done she could see herself becoming a coach.

"I'm excited to see what her future holds for her because it's almost like her free-throw shooting -- once she made a decision that she was a good free-throw shooter and she was confident, I think we've seen a different free-throw shooter," Patterson said. "When she decides that's how her life is going to be, then it's going to be amazing."