Southeast Missouri State women's basketball team tries to end skid at SIUE

~ The Redhawks have lost their last three OVC games

The focus that Southeast Missouri State women's basketball coach Ty Margenthaler expected his team to have in the Redhawks' road game against Eastern Illinois on Saturday wasn't completely there, and he said it's the "biggest thing" that they have to improve on moving forward.

The Redhawks (7-16, 3-7 OVC) sit in fourth place in the Ohio Valley Conference West Division standings and 10th overall, and will need that focus for their final six games of the Ohio Valley Conference regular season if they hope to make it to the OVC tournament in Nashville, Tenn.

"On Wednesday we had the best practice all year -- they talked, they communicated, they had fun. We're just having trouble carrying that over to games," Margenthaler said following the Redhawks' 53-48 loss at Eastern Illinois on Saturday. "Why? I'm struggling learning that too. I don't have an answer for that. And I asked them, 'Is it something a little with confidence? Is it something a little bit this?' I don't know. But we've just got to figure it out, and we've got six games now to do it."

Southeast will get a chance to work on that puzzle tonight against OVC West Division opponent SIU Edwardsville, which sits in fifth in the West Division and 11th overall. The Redhawks face the Cougars at 7 p.m. at the Vadalabene Center in Edwardsville, Ill.

SIUE had lost four consecutive conference games, including a 79-71 loss to the Redhawks on Jan. 27, before handing UT-Martin its first loss of the season Saturday night.

The Cougars held the conference's highest-scoring team to 62 points in their 65-62 win, improving to 7-17 overall and 3-8 in the OVC.

"You can look at it two ways: One it's going to be an emotional win for them so maybe there'll be a little letdown, but really I'm more just on our team and we need to prepare," Margenthaler said. "Again, we should be confident -- we played them well the first time."

Southeast trailed by three points at halftime in the first meeting, but the Redhawks shot 55.6 percent from the field in the second half and 70 percent from behind the arc (7 of 10) over the final 20 minutes to secure the win.

All nine Redhawks scored in that game, which gave Southeast its first and only winning streak of the season.

Olivia Hackmann led Southeast with a career-high 17 points. Connor King, Patricia Mack, Allyson Bradshaw and Kara Wright also scored double-figures.

Southeast has since lost three straight, shooting 34.9 percent over the span. The Redhawks shot just 35.6 percent Saturday and was 4 of 21 from 3-point range.

Margenthaler practiced his team Sunday and wasn't going to let the loss to EIU deter the team from continuing to improve.

"I'm not going to be down," Margenthaler said. "We're going to fight. We're going to work. I'm not going to waste a day of being gloom and doom. It's just not worth it to me. We've got to just take care of our stuff, and if we do that we'll be fine. If not, we'll go back to work on Tuesday."

In addition to being more focused, Margenthaler said his players need to play with increased intensity throughout the game.

"We showed spots [Saturday against EIU], but just playing harder longer and just having that focus," Margenthaler said. "There's a couple things that we could've done on offense -- a little late to screen, a little late to do something -- and it's going to clog things up if our timing's not there, so that's what we're going to work on."