Southeast Missouri State women's basketball team will try to preserve OVC tourney hopes vs. Tech

~ The Southeast women's basketball team faces challenge tonight in Tennessee

The Southeast Missouri State women's basketball team's goal of making it to the Ohio Valley Conference tournament remains within reach.

Southeast snapped a two-game losing streak with a 59-48 win against Jacksonville State on Saturday to improve to 9-18 and 5-9 in the OVC.

Southeast remains in 11th place in the conference standings, but with two games remaining the Redhawks are close behind SIU Edwardsville and Austin Peay -- both 6-9 in the conference and tied for the eighth and final spot to for the field in Nashville.

"It was big for us, of course, and we feel like we've definitely got to win out and I've been really open with our team about that," Southeast coach Ty Margenthaler said. "And not to put [on] any extra pressure, but I think that they really need to know."

The Redhawks face Tennessee Tech at 7 p.m. today at the Eblen Center in Cookeville, Tenn., for their final road game of the season.

Tennessee Tech is 10-16 and 7-6 in the conference. The Golden Eagles, coming off a 74-70 loss to Eastern Kentucky on Feb. 17, sit in third place in the East Division and fourth in the overall conference standings.

Junior guard Diamond Henderson is third in the conference in scoring with 19.2 ppg while 6-foot-2 junior center Candace Parson averages 10 points and six rebounds.

"I think it's a very winnable game," Margenthaler said. "Really, it's more about us. We've got to take care of the ball. We've got to get good shots. We've got to make the shots. I think it's going to more about us, quite honestly, these next two games, than really our opponents."

Southeast is led in scoring by Patricia Mack and Olivia Hackmann with 9.6 ppg. Mack also averages 9.9 rebounds and had a career-high 21 in the victory against JSU.

The Redhawks received a major boost from their bench Saturday with Brianna Mitchell leading Southeast with 17 points and Kara Wright chipping in five.

With a win tonight, Southeast would have just its second winning streak of the season.

"We're trying to be more consistent and I talk a lot about that and try to get in their minds," Margenthaler said. "I can't figure them out all the time, but I thought we had two very good practices [leading up to the Jacksonville State game] and kept on them quite a bit, and for this late in the year probably a little bit longer than we'd like, but we're still teaching. We're teaching for this year, we're teaching for next year, and I just thought our focus was good."