Southeast Missouri State women's basketball team's season ends with loss to Austin Peay

The roller coaster ride that was the Southeast Missouri State women's basketball season ended on a downturn on Saturday.

The Redhawks concluded their inconsistent season by letting a lead slip away and suffering a 72-67 loss to Austin Peay at the Show Me Center.

Southeast, which failed to make the Ohio Valley Conference tournament for the sixth consecutive year, finished the season 10-19 and 3-13 in the OVC.

"It's kind of typical of how the whole year went, quite honestly," Southeast coach Ty Margenthaler said. "I thought we got really good looks. There was a play with about two minutes to go in the game where we shot a jump shot, Olivia [Hackmann] got the offensive rebound, missed a 3-footer, got the offensive rebound, Jasmine [Robinson] went up and missed a layup, the ball went out of bounds. Their ball. It's just one of those things where we just didn't make the plays when we needed to make the plays, and that was unfortunate."

Southeast led by as many as 13 points with 5 minutes, 30 seconds to go in the first half and held a 37-29 advantage at halftime after the Redhawks shot 43.3 percent from the floor and 5 of 10 from behind the arc in the first 20 minutes.

The Redhawks saw their lead dwindle over the first 10 minutes of the second half, and the Govs tied it at 49 with 9:41 remaining.

Southeast pushed the lead back to as many as six two and a half minutes later, but a 3-pointer late in the shot clock by APSU guard Tiasha Gray with 6:51 to play started a 14-0 spurt for the Govs.

The Redhawks trailed 67-59 with 1:48 to play when junior guard Olivia Hackmann halted a scoreless drought of 5:45 with a 3-pointer to cut it to five.

Southeast Missouri State's Allyson Bradshaw takes a shot against Austin Peay's Brianne Alexander during the first half Saturday, Feb. 28, 2015 at the Show Me Center. (Fred Lynch)

The Govs hit two free throws over their next three possessions and Southeast pulled within 69-67 with 17 seconds to go on a 3 by junior forward Erin Bollmann.

After an APSU free throw brought the deficit to three, Bollmann was called on for another 3-point attempt, but it was off the mark following what Bollmann believed was a foul with 7 seconds left.

"Yeah, she definitely touched my hand, but I didn't know what to do," Bollmann said. "I should've fell, I should've done something dramatic. That's all I could do, get the shot off."

The Govs hit a pair of free throws with 3 seconds left to seal the win and improve to 10-19 and 7-9 in the OVC.

APSU shot 48.1 percent from the field in its second-half comeback and made 14 of 25 free-throw attempts after only shooting four from the line in the first half. The Redhawks shot 33.3 percent in the second half and attempted four of their 15 total free throws in the second half.

"I can't say a whole lot. I don't want to get in trouble with that situation, but I mean just two totally different halves the way the play [was called]," Margenthaler said. "Again, that did not lose the game by no means. Gray hit huge shot after huge shot. I thought their guards really played well. I thought they defended us really well -- strong, aggressive, quick. I thought they made some very difficult shots. We had 50 rebounds to their 36. Normally you win the game when you get 50 rebounds, but it kind of came down to that free-throw game and they made more free throws than we did."

Southeast also committed 21 turnovers in the contest and the Govs scored 22 points off Redhawks' mistakes. Sophomore guard Brianna Mitchell had seven turnovers for Southeast while Gray had six steals for APSU.

"I thought we were careless at times," Margenthaler said. "Bri's a better basketball player than she played tonight. She really struggled tonight unfortunately. She's had some great games leading up to this game. I thought we were careless at times, but I've got to give Austin Peay their credit because they really were aggressive.

"I mean, they were quick, they were athletic -- we know Gray is one of the top defenders in the country. I don't know where she ranks in the top 20, but she's definitely up there in getting steals. That was really was a big cause. ... They just kind of took us out of what we wanted to try to do."

Bollmann agreed that turnovers hindered Southeast but felt the team's execution in key scenarios was just as big of an issue.

"When we steal a ball we have to put the ball in the basket, we can't turn it over right away," Bollmann said of the Redhawks, who scored just six points off 12 APSU turnovers. "When we're getting second chances and not executing, it's not them, it's us. It's always us."

Robinson led Southeast with 17 points and 12 rebounds while Bollmann finished with 15 points, six rebounds, two assists and two steals. Hackmann had 13 points and six rebounds.

Gray finished with 36 points on 12-of-20 shooting and was 4 of 8 from 3-point range. Guard April Rivers and center Beth Rates had 11 and 10 points, respectively, for APSU.

"We were very inconsistent. That's something different than I've been a part of," Bollmann said of her first season at Southeast. "This whole experience has kind of been down for me just because I've always been on a winning team. But being on the other side, being on the other side of losing, I have learned so much about my teammates when things are going down. You learn so much about a person when things aren't going right. Knowing that these people are going to step up, and our seniors are going to take control whenever things are going down, I think we've learned so much about each other.