Southeast Missouri State women's basketball team rallies to stay perfect in OVC

MOREHEAD, Ky. -- The thought crossed the mind of Southeast Missouri State women's basketball coach Rekha Patterson in the closing seconds of her team's road game against Morehead State on Thursday night.

Even 20 minutes later, as she stood courtside at Johnson Arena where her team had just come back to knock off the Eagles 89-79, the question was still in her head.

"How did we do that?"

She'd turned to her coaching staff on the bench as the clock wound down late and posed that question to them. Assistant coach James Arnold came up with the response that Patterson felt summed up the win.

"Coach Arnold said, 'For 10 minutes we played extremely hard, extremely tough and as one unit,'" Patterson said. "And I told them in the locker room, 'When you guys do that you can be special.'"

The Redhawks trailed by as many as 13 midway through the third quarter and were down 11 with 32 seconds left in the third.

Sophomore guard Ashton Luttrull drained a long 3 from the right wing with six seconds left in the quarter to cut the Eagles' lead to 69-61 heading to the fourth to spark Southeast's comeback.

"Like, Ashton is a very silent leader, but she came on the bench after making that 3 in the third quarter and [was] screaming, 'Let's go! We're going to win!'" senior forward Erin Bollmann said. "That's exactly what we need and that's what keeps picking us up and being able to win and come out at the end."

Patterson recalled Luttrull, who finished with 12 points, yelling, 'We are not going to lose,' but agreed that's when her players started to show some fight.

"They listen to her a little bit more than they listen to me," Patterson said with a laugh, "because at halftime I said, 'There are no adjustments for me to make because we're not playing hard or tough, and we're doing all this one-on-one defense when we told you guys they're really good one-on-one.' So when she said it they listened and then they fed off of her and the rest is history, I guess."

Luttrull got a steal, scored and was fouled 14 seconds into the fourth quarter. Her 3-point play brought the Redhawks within five.

Baskets by freshman guard Corneisha Henderson and Erin Bollmann cut it to one. After a bucket by MSU's Shay Steele, sophomore guard Hannah Noe knocked down a 3 to retie it.

It was tied once more at 75-all with 5:31 to go.

Luttrull, who sparked the Redhawks in their win over Tennessee State on Saturday, knocked down her third 3 of the game from the top of the key with 4:39 to go to put Southeast up for good at 78-75.

"I think we defended, we got some rebounds and what about Ashton? God, the kid is so special," Patterson said.

Bri Mitchell scored the final 11 points of the game, going 5 of 6 from the FT line, for Southeast to close out the win. She finished with 21 points on 8-of-14 shooting to go along with nine assists.

MSU shot 30 percent from the field in the second half and was 1 of 4 from beyond the arc after making 6 of 13 3s in the first half.

"Coach did say on the bench before the fourth quarter, 'If we play hard for 10 minutes we have a good chance of winning,'" said Bollmann, who finished with 15 points, "and so I think we all kind of looked at each other and were like, 'We're going to play hard for each, for our coach, just so we can get this win. Because we don't want to be 2-1. We want to be 3-0.'"

Southeast outscored MSU 28-10 in the final 10 minutes of the game. It was tied 20-20 after one quarter and MSU held a 47-39 advantage at half. Both teams had 22 points in the third quarter.

Henderson scored a career-high 19 points in 27 minutes off the bench. She shot 7 of 9 from the floor, including 3 of 5 from beyond the arc and knocked down two free throws.

"They tell me every day I can do it, like even when I wasn't getting as much playing time my teammates just told me, 'You can do it. You can do it. Just keep your head up,'" Henderson said. "I give all the credit to my teammates and my coaches for believing in me."

The Cincinnati, Ohio, native, scored 15 of her points in the first half. The Redhawks shot 40.5 percent from the floor in the first 20 minutes and 58.8 percent in the second half.

"That was a huge 15 because we couldn't get into a flow offensively, and credit to Morehead State because of that," Patterson said. "But she has the ability to attack off the bounce and then she has the ability to shoot the 3, so that makes it a little different. When you add her plus the other players around her it's like who are you going to guard or who are you going to focus on

"Happy for her because we are an hour and a half away from her hometown and her family's able to come and her friends. I'm happy she's in our uniform."

The Redhawks improved to 10-6 and 3-0 in the Ohio Valley Conference with the victory.

Both match win totals from last season when they finished 10-19 overall and 3-13 in conference.

It's the first time since 1998-99 that Southeast has started 3-0 in conference.

The Redhawks travel to Richmond, Kentucky, to face Eastern Kentucky on Saturday. Tipoff is set for 3 p.m.

"I pray that they are not getting comfortable," Patterson said. "I pray they realize how hard it is that you have to compete every single possession. I think we are learning to win. I think we are."