Redhawks ride defense past Tennessee State, win 51-46

~ Southeast claimed its first OVC victory of the season

Saturday night's Ohio Valley Conference contest between Southeast Missouri State and Tennessee State women's basketball teams featured a combined 41 turnovers, 17 missed free throws and 95 missed shots compared to 25 makes.

But for the victorious Redhawks, the 51-46 final score were the most important numbers on the final stat sheet.

The victory improved Southeast's record to 3-5 this season and 1-1 in the OVC.

"We made it happen when we needed to," Southeast sophomore Brittany Harriel said. "It was scary at the end. We need to shore up those free throws, but somehow we made it happen. That's all the matters."

Southeast sophomore Katie Norman, left, struggles with Tennessee State defender Alana Morris for control of the ball Saturday, December 4, 2010 at the Show Me Center. (Laura Simon)

Southeast never trailed in the game and led by as many as 13 points in the second half, but the Tigers closed to within three points with 28 seconds left.

"The biggest thing about this win -- other than winning -- was we did some things that were not conducive to winning," Southeast coach John Ishee said. "We missed critical free throws down the stretch from good free-throw shooters, we turned the ball over underneath our basket late when we had three timeouts left, but our kids never quit competing and they never quit communicating.

"We never dropped our head. We never thought like, 'Here we go again.' We fought through adversity and we got off to a good start."

The Redhawks jumped out to a 9-0 lead to begin the game and did not surrender a field goal until more than seven minutes into the game.

"We've been getting off to bad starts for about two seasons with this group," Ishee said.

Harriel said there were no major changes to the team's plan.

"I feel like it's just the same stuff we drill every day in practice," she said. "We just executed a little better."

Southeast held Tennessee State (3-5, 0-2 in the OVC) to 26 percent shooting from the field and forced 21 turnovers.

"I think this was much better today, and that's basically based off of communication," Southeast sophomore Jasmine Davis said of her team's defensive performance. "We talked and caught our screens and everything, so that was pretty good."

The Redhawks' offensive struggles continued, though. Southeast also shot 26 percent from the field and made just 12 field goals to go along with a 24-of-36 performance at the free-throw line.

"We're a grind-it-out type team just because of who we are," Ishee said. "There's nothing I'd like better than to score 80 or 90 a night, but that's not our personality. We're a grind-it-out team."

Entering the game, Southeast was averaging 52 points a game and shooting 33 percent.

"Offensively, even though we only score 51 points, we got a lot of good looks," Ishee said. "We had a few turnovers that took baskets away (with traveling calls), but overall winning's never easy. It takes everybody to win and they did executive better than we have all year."

Davis and Karley Evan led Southeast with 10 points each while Harriel contributed eight points and nine rebounds.

Tennessee State was led by Tayla Foster with 10 points and six rebounds. Meredith Stafford added nine points.

"It was a great win because you can tell young people certain things only for so long, then they have to have some tangible results to really buy in to what you're saying," Ishee said.