Southeast women suffer lopsided loss to Saint Louis

~ The Redhawks socred just nine points in the first half of a 52-34 loss

The Southeast Missouri State University women's basketball team dug a hole that it just couldn't get out of Tuesday night.

The Redhawks were held to single-digit scoring and trailed by 25 points at halftime of its game against Saint Louis University.

Southeast showed a little more life in the second half, but dropped to 3-8 on the season with a 52-34 loss to SLU (4-6) at Chaifetz Arena.

The Redhawks scored nine points over the first 20 minutes and shot 11 percent from the field.

The Billikens scored as many points in the first half as Southeast did in the entire game. The Billikens scored 16 points in the paint and made 7 of 10 free throw attempts in the first half.

"The first half we started out, and I was honestly disappointed in the defensive effort," Southeast coach Ty Margenthaler said. "I thought we had some breakdowns defensively. I thought Saint Louis had a pretty easy way to driving baseline and driving to the rim. I thought we gave up too many easy baskets in the first half."

Southeast trailed by three points with 17 minutes, 11 seconds left in the half after a 3-pointer by Patricia Mack.

SLU then went on a 10-0 run to take an 18-5 lead with 12:10 left in the half before Kara Wright was fouled and made both free throws.

The Redhawks made two more free throws, but did not make another field goal in the half.

Southeast finally made another field goal after more than 20 minutes on a layup by Yelena Rosado with 15:18 left in the game to make it 38-13.

The Billikens answered with a 3-pointer from Desirae Ball, but Allyson Bradshaw hit a 3 of her own on the next possesion.

Neither team scored on the next possesions and Bradshaw drained her second 3-pointer of the game.

Jordan Hunter scored her first and only points of the game with a 3-pointer to make it 44-22 with about nine minutes left in the game.

Southeast outscored SLU 10-3, capped by a pair of free throws by Mack to cut the deficit to 15 points, but there were less than two minutes left in the game.

Southeast outscored the Billikens 25-18 in the second half.

"What I did was at halftime -- I just said we've got to make small goals, and I said the one goal I want to see if we can handle in the second half -- if we can hold them under 50 points and have a better offensive production that would give us a better opportunity to get back in the game and try to win it," Margenthaler said. "They scored 52. We did score better, not enough to win the game, but I thought we did a much better job the second half defending."

Southeast shot 21.6 percent in the game and didn't have any player score in double figures. "I mean, we were definitely missing shots, but I thought some shots were contested, maybe a little quick," Margenthaler said. "But I thought we had overall some pretty good looks. They just weren't going down. I think we just have to be a little bit sharper on our offensive end and cut a little harder, screen a little better and give ourselves a better look. And then maybe a shot from 12 feet instead of 18 feet. They just kind of pushed us out a little bit further than we wanted to go."

Mack, Olivia Hackmann and Bradshaw each scored seven points. Southeast was 11 for 51 shooting and made 8 of 15 free throws in the loss.

Ball was the only player in double figures and led all scorers with 15 points. Erin Nelson finished with nine and Sadie Stipanovich added seven.

The Redhawks host Division II opponent Illinois-Springfield at 6:30 p.m. tomorrow at the Show Me Center.

"We're going to do a lot of shooting tomorrow," Margenthaler said. "Work on our offense tomorrow. We looked a little too stagnant, so tomorrow's going to be a big offensive day. We just need to focus and concentrate on the offensive end and definitely shoot the ball better. We're not going to win a lot of games shooting 21 percent."

Southeast won its last home game against SIU Carbondale last Wednesday but has lost seven of its last eight games.