Southeast women seek first road win

The Southeast Missouri State women's basketball team has not posted a road victory this season.

Southeast hopes its two-game winning streak fashioned at the Show Me Center will give the Redhawks the necessary confidence to finally break through away from home.

The Redhawks face a stretch of three straight Ohio Valley Conference road tests beginning Saturday against Eastern Illinois in a 2 p.m. tipoff.

Next week Southeast travels to Morehead State and Eastern Kentucky, who entered Thursday's action leading the OVC with 4-0 records, just ahead of 3-1 EIU (7-8 overall).

"It's a tough stretch for us," Southeast coach John Ishee said.

Southeast, 5-8 overall and 2-2 in the OVC, is 0-6 on the road. But the Redhawks were competitive in a four-point loss at Tennessee State last month.

"We played well on the road at Tennessee State as far as competing and being in the game," Ishee said.

The Redhawks evened their OVC record by winning two close home games over the past week, beating Tennessee Tech 61-56 on Saturday and Jacksonville State 56-53 on Monday.

"We still haven't won on the road, but our confidence has definitely gotten up," sophomore point guard Bianca Beck said.

The Panthers are coming off a 24-9 season that saw them finish second in the OVC at 15-3 and lose in the championship game of the conference tournament.

EIU's top returning players are 6-foot-1 senior forward Maggie Kloak and 5-10 senior guard Dominique Sims, who are averaging 12.0 and 10.1 points per game, respectively.

But EIU's best all-around performer so far has been 5-8 freshman guard Ta'Kenya Nixon, who likely will make a strong push for OVC freshman of the year honors.

Nixon is the conference's No. 3 scorer with a 14.3 average while ranking first in field-goal percentage (55.1), first in steals (2.2) and third in assists (4.1).

Nixon is coming off a brilliant performance during Monday's 79-68 home win over Tennessee Tech as she scored a career-high 25 points while adding nine rebounds, six assists and six steals in 37 minutes.

"They're very well coached, they've got a lot of experience with Kloak and Sims and they've got one of the better freshman in the conference in Nixon," Ishee said. "I was really looking forward to seeing her and Jasmine Davis going at it."

That won't happen because Davis, Southeast's impressive freshman guard, is out for the season after suffering a knee injury during Monday's game.

Davis is Southeast's top scorer with a 10-point average while leading the OVC in free-throw shooting at 87.7 percent.

"We'll miss her, but other people will just have to step up," Ishee said. "We've still got to play the games."

EIU leads the league in scoring (71.3 points per game) and field-goal percentage (42.3).

"They are one of our rivals [in the OVC]," Beck said. "We get pumped to play them."

The young Redhawks still have a long way to go but Ishee believes they're improving and he doesn't question their desire.

"We'll have to play our best to have a chance [Saturday], but I know we're going to go there and compete," Ishee said.