Southeast Missouri State women's basketball team routs William Woods

The Southeast Missouri State women's basketball team couldn't have asked for much of a better end to its non-conference schedule.

The Redhawks won the fifth game out of their last six with a 77-40 rout of NAIA William Woods to improve to 7-6 -- the program's first winning non-conference record since 2008.

"We're definitely growing. I think we're all coming together," senior guard Jasmine Robinson said. "We see that we all are actually a good team. That's basically it. We're seeing that we are actually good, so now we're taking it to another level. We're getting better and better in practice, and we're just finding a way how to win."

The Redhawks never trailed in the contest and led by double figures the entire way after taking a 20-10 lead with 9 minutes, 56 seconds left in the first half on a layup by junior forward Connor King. Southeast held a 36-20 advantage at halftime, and only improved over the final 20 minutes.

"I know that in a lot of prior times after games we talk about how we don't bring energy in the second half, but I really thought we matched our energy and then amped it up in the second half, and that allowed us to break open and get some wide-open layups," King said.

After the Owls (8-3) pulled within 13 points with 14:04 remaining in the game, Southeast responded with a 15-0 run that started with a layup by senior forward Hillary Lively and lasted until a pair of William Woods free throws about five minutes later.

The Redhawks had two steals during that stretch and had 14 in the game. Junior forward Erin Bollmann led the way with four steals. She also had a game-high 14 points and 11 rebounds.

William Woods shot just 28.3 percent (15 of 53) from the floor and made just 1 of 12 3-point attempts. The Owls turned it over 17 times and Southeast capitalized with 28 points off turnovers.

"Our defense was really strong, but on offense I feel like we were very unselfish," Bollmann said. "Like we were passing the ball, everybody was touching it -- it wasn't just somebody dribbling up and down by themselves -- so I think that helped us on the offensive end. On the defensive end we were just playing together, knowing that if she's diving after the ball, I'm going to go get it for her, because she just dove after it."

Southeast led by as many as 39 points in the contest after a 3-pointer by freshman guard Hannah Noe with 1:34 left and again on a pair of free throws by freshman forward Kaley Leyhue a minute later.

The Redhawks finished with four players in double-figure scoring. In addition to Bollmann, Robinson had 13, Lively and Olivia Hackmann had 11 apiece.

Southeast shot 44.8 percent in the game and connected on 50 percent (17 of 34) of its shots in the second half.

"There's two categories I'm really happy with -- the assist-turnover ratio," Southeast coach Ty Margenthaler said. "Fifteen assists means that we're playing well together, we're passing the basketball, we're being very unselfish. And again we're being pretty consistent with our turnovers with only seven turnovers. I'm really proud of that. Any time you can pass the basketball, take care of the basketball, you're going to give yourselves great chances to win.

"The last thing I kind of mentioned to our team before I walked into here was that I was really happy -- we've been off for awhile with Christmas break, had a couple practices that haven't been the best, haven't been the sharpest, 11 o'clock game -- we could've made a million excuses, but we came in and I thought played pretty workman-like for 40 minutes. I thought we stayed within our gameplan for 40 minutes. We didn't really get out of whack, we didn't play low level or high level, we just kind of stayed even, and I was proud of that. I think that shows, and I told our team, I feel like we're growing. I feel like we're more mature. I think we understand things. And I do know this, the winning definitely helps that."

The Redhawks will take a two-game winning streak into the start of OVC play.

They face Belmont and Tennessee State in Nashville on Thursday and Saturday.

"We did some really good things today," King said. "A lot of players that were maybe in a slump or were down, had the ability to come out and play a really good game. Going into conference now*...we have the confidence as individuals and a team to be what we want."

Conference play

The Southeast women's basketball team will begin its quest for a berth in the Ohio Valley Conference tournament on Thursday, something that it hasn't been able to accomplish in the previous five seasons.

The Redhawks open conference play against the Belmont Bruins, who were picked as the favorites to win the title in the preseason poll.

Tip-off is set for 3 p.m. at the Curb Event Center in Nashville following the men's basketball game.

"I told these guys, [myself] included, we've all got to take our game up to another level right now. We've all got to step it up," Margenthaler said. "I've got to be a better basketball coach during conference play. Our players have got to be more focused on the scout, more focused on practice. We've got to be a little bit more tougher, and the biggest thing is we've got to be consistent. Our big-time players have got to be really, really consistent and really, really good and locked in. If we can do those things, I really, truly believe we have the pieces to maybe make a run. But we've got to take it day by day. It's going to be difficult. There's a lot of good teams in our league. We're all bunched in there together. But if we can keep our defense the way it is, our offense the way we've been taking care of the ball, I really truly believe we have the opportunity to do something that this program hasn't done in quite awhile."

Southeast has already accomplished something it hadn't since 2008 when it posted a winning record in its non-conference schedule.

The Redhawks, who finished 6-10 in OVC last season for its best conference record since 2008, finished tied for ninth in the standings and didn't make the eight-team OVC tournament in Nashville.

Their goal is to make it to Nashville in March will start in Nashville against the 3-10 Bruins and continue with Tennessee State on Saturday.

Belmont's wins have come against Denver, Lipscomb and Mercer. They enter Thursday's game with a two-game losing streak.

The Bruins are led in scoring by 6-foot-1 sophomore forward Frankie Joubran, who averages 12.4 points and 10.1 rebounds per game.

The conference's preseason Player of the Year is Bruins' 6-1 senior guard/forward Jordyn Luffman-Hartsfield, who averages 11.5 points and 6.2 rebounds. Luffman-Hartsfield has connected on 27 of 78 3-point attempts (34.6 percent).

Southeast lost 81-74 to Belmont in its conference opener last season.

"Belmont is picked No. 1 preseason for a reason," Margenthaler said. "They're very, very talented. They beat us here last year. They have great size, good guard play. Everyone's going to look at their record and say, 'Wow, they're 3-10.' But their schedule has been tremendous. They've gone through a couple SEC schools. They've played Western Kentucky, which is a top mid-major program. They beat some good schools, too, but they've had a very difficult schedule, so we know at their place it's going to be a very difficult game, but I'm really excited."