Southern Illinois breaks halftime deadlock, defeats Southeast women's basketball team

CARBONDALE, Ill. -- Consistency was the name of the game Friday night between the Southeast Missouri State women's basketball team and regional-rival Southern Illinois.

Redhawks coach Ty Margenthaler made a point of talking to his players about the need to be consistent before the game because it was a step he thought could be taken against the Salukis.

After an evenly-matched first half, SIU was able to pull away from an erratic Southeast squad and win 78-62.

"I just told the young girls in there, 'We're a Division I program. No one's going to give it to you,'" Margenthaler said. "And I said there's a fine line between winning and losing, and we've got to find out how to win, and that's the bottom line."

The Redhawks and Salukis were knotted 37-37 at halftime.

Southeast led by as many as six points in an opening half during which it shot 48.4 percent (15 of 31) from the floor and 2 of 4 from behind the arc.

The game was tied at 28-28 with 6 minutes, 29 seconds remaining in the half when Southeast went without a basket for nearly four minutes and the Salukis took a 7-point lead.

The Redhawks answered with their own 7-0 run over in a 1:03 span.

A free throw by senior guard Yelena Rosado sparked it. Rosado drove and set senior forward Hillary Lively up for easy baskets twice with bounce passes, and junior forward Erin Bollmann scored in transition.

Southeast fed off that late surge and scored the first four points of the half.

The Redhawks led until SIU forward Dyana Pierre evened it at 43-43 with 14:51 to play.

The game was tied once more at 45 before the Salukis rattled off 10 points to take a 55-45 lead with 10:23 remaining.

"I felt like about the 13 or 14-minute mark we got a little tired and started turning the ball over, and then they started going in transition," Margenthaler said. "We missed a lot of little bunnies down low, little floaters, so we just need to be a little bit stronger. Their size hurt us a little bit down low, there's no question. *... I was disappointed a little bit with the overall effort because they really beat us hard on the boards. We go to Ole Miss and outrebounded them because we had great energy, great effort, and tonight I didn't think we had it consistently. I thought we had it in spurts, but you just can't do that."

A layup by senior guard Jasmine Robinson pulled the Redhawks within eight points, but it was as close as they'd get.

"I'm very frustrated because I feel like we're better than that," Robinson said. "We just came off a road game with one heck of an effort, and it wasn't the same."

Robinson referred to Southeast's one-point loss to Ole Miss of the Southeastern Conference on a last-second shot, and felt that the Redhawks didn't play up to their potential against SIU in several ways.

"We're better rebounders than that, we're better defenders than that, we can take of the ball a lot better because we displayed that in the first half," Robinson said. "Then we come back and turn the ball over in the second half. No, we're better than that. It's just plain effort that we didn't have."

Southeast turned the ball over nine times in the second half after just four turnovers in the first 20 minutes, and the Salukis scored 19 points off the Redhawks' miscues.

SIU outrebounded Southeast 45-33, and had 19 offensive rebounds.

Saluki forward Azia Washington finished with 11 boards and 11 points while forward Dyana Pierre added nine rebounds and nine points.

"I think some of their second and third offensive rebounds kind of deflated us," Margenthaler said. "I think that hurt us, and I think you could tell some of our late turnovers were just careless. I think just mentally we just got kind of mush."

Southeast was 40.3 percent from the floor on the night after shooting 32.3 percent in the second half. The Redhawks were led by Robinson with 15 points, three assists and three steals. Rosado had 11 points and three assists, and junior forwards Connor King and Bollmann had nine points and 10 rebounds and eight points, six rebounds and four steals, respectively.

SIU shot 49.2 percent (31 of 63) from the field and was led by guard Rishonda Napier with 21 points. Guards Carataesha Macklin and Kylie Giebelhausen had 14 and 12 points, respectively. Giebelhausen was 4 of 7 from behind the arc and had five blocks.

The Redhawks travel to Peoria, Illinois, for a 2 p.m. matchup against Bradley.

"That we've got to be consistent. That we've got to bring energy for 40 minutes or we're not going to win," Junior forward Connor King said of what the team should take away from the loss. "It's tough on the road. You know, you don't have the crowd behind you, nobody's saying your name when you make a point, so we've got to learn that we've got to bring the energy on the road because they ain't going to bring it for us."