Southeast women's basketball team keeps tournament hopes alive

~ The Redhawks defeated Jacksonville State 59-48 at the Show Me Center

The Southeast Missouri State women's basketball team tried to do things a little differently against visiting Jacksonville State on Saturday.

Southeast coach Ty Margenthaler's game plan on both the offensive and defensive ends paid off as the Redhawks defeated JSU (11-16, 7-7 OVC) 59-48 at the Show Me Center.

The Redhawks improved to 8-18 overall and 4-9 in the conference with the win and kept alive hopes of qualifying for the Ohio Valley Conference tournament.

"Our focus to begin the game was really to go to Ally [Allyson Bradshaw] and go to Trish [Patricia Mack], really isolate those two and really start to run more sets for different players that are hot during each time," Margenthaler said, "and really kind of getting a little bit away from the motion and just keep it a little more simple for this basketball team right now."

Southeast jumped out to a 6-0 lead before the Gamecocks used a 12-4 run to take a two-point lead with 10 minutes, 59 seconds remaining in the first half. Southeast got its lead back to as many as seven points and took a 29-23 lead into halftime.

JSU came out of halftime and used a 9-3 run to knot it at 32-32 with 16:09 left in the game.

The teams traded baskets and Southeast held a one-point lead with 8 minutes to play when guards Kara Wright and Brianna Mitchell hit 3s on back-to-back possessions to make it 46-39 with 6:20 left.

Mitchell hit another shot from behind the arc with 55 seconds to play to help seal the victory. She led Southeast with 17 points off the bench.

"I thought Brianna Mitchell came in and really gave us a spark," Margenthaler said. "She played under control and made some big shots, made some really good passes, so she was a big, big spark for this team tonight."

Southeast's defense held JSU to 27 percent (17 of 63) shooting in the game.

"One thing that I'm really happy about and it hasn't been all year, I was really happy that they really stuck with what we were telling them," Margenthaler said. "They really trusted what we're saying and really trusted the game plan, and it was a little bit different than we've ever done. They've got a point guard that's only attempted 61 shots the whole year, so Trish Mack guarded her but really just stayed in the lane, and really it was basically five against four the whole night. I didn't know if they'd really buy into it because it's very unusual. I didn't know if they'd buy into what we're saying, but they did. Trish, basically we told her for two days was 'You're just going to kind of be a rover and just helping everybody else out.'"

Mack finished with 12 points and a career-high 21 rebounds. Possibly lost in the shuffle of Mack's career-high was the 12 rebounds that Connor King snagged.

"Connor had some hustle plays down the end that were really big. I mean, really big," Margenthaler said of the Jackson High School graduate. "Couple of times loose balls tipped it to a player, kept the possession alive, I mean, just really I was proud of her. She just did a lot of good hustle things that sometimes don't show up on the box score, but she really played well."

Southeast's next game is on the road against Tennessee Tech on Monday.