Tremendous second half sends Redhawks MBB past Western Illinois, coming home winning

Southeast Missouri State put an emphatic end to its road trip on Saturday, traveling to take a resounding 72-51 victory over Western Illinois to keep its Ohio Valley Conference contention hopes alive in a red-hot league.

Fighting through a tense first half to take a 4-point lead at the break, Southeast broke out of its short slump beginning Thursday against Lindenwood to forge a near-perfect second half and a flattering 20-plus-point victory over the hosting Leathernecks.

Improving to 6-4 in league play, 11-10 overall, the Redhawks are looking stout heading back to Cape Girardeau after going 2-1 on their conference road trip including last week’s 7-point victory over a tourney-bound Tennessee Tech team.

Western Illinois, meanwhile, slips to 2-8 in the OVC, 8-13 overall with six consecutive losses suffered at the hands of its new league rivals, sitting in 10th place in the Ohio Valley just one game above last-place Eastern Illinois, rivals in nomenclature and status.

Led once again by the scoring talents of junior college transfer Brendan Terry, putting up 19 points, Southeast put together one of its most complete wins of the season on the road to right the ship and claim its sixth OVC win of the year.

Joining Terry in double figures were Rob Martin’s 16 points and T.J. Biel’s 10, with both Martin and Terry shooting 7-of-12 from the floor on Saturday afternoon.

Trey Deveaux led Western in points scored, dropping in 14 while Sean Smith’s 10 finished as the only Leatherneck to join him in double figures. Regular leading scorer Marko Maletic was contained to just 9 points on 4-of-9 shooting from the field, just 1-of-3 from range.

Moreover, Martin’s 36 minutes saw him finish with a 23-over plus-minus, while Biel racked up a 20-over in just 25 minutes and Teddy Washington Jr. an 18-over in his 28 minutes.

Maybe the most resounding stat, however, was a 13-6 victory for Southeast in the turnover game, stealing the ball away 7 times to just 3 for the hosting WIU ‘Necks, with Washington Jr. and junior guard Braxton Stacker each recording two takeaways.

Terry, with his 19, breaks into double figures for his scoring average at 10.2 points per game after having led the Redhawks in scoring for the past two games of the three-game road stand.

Moving into the end of January, and the soon-to-be fiery February finish, the Redhawks are anticipating a handful of excellent teams on the schedule.

This includes road matchups with the first, second and third-ranked teams in the Ohio Valley Conference still left to play, with No. 4 Southeast Missouri State still yet to play through the thick of its away schedule.

Though two weeks from now, the Redhawks will take on No. 1 Morehead State and No. 9 Southern Indiana on the road, the next week will present two great home opportunities for Southeast to bolster its status against the No. 5 and No. 6 teams.

Bringing Tennesee-Martin into town on Thursday and Tennessee State on Saturday, there’s a lot to play for over the next week as the Redhawks look to break out of the middle of the pack and back into the ranks of contention.

The Redhawks will open the week at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday at the Show Me Center, hosting Tennessee-Martin in a rivalry clash.

Southeast has lost five consecutive games against the Skyhawks, last winning on its home floor on Feb. 24, 2022.