Southeast Missouri State women's basketball team with road loss at Saint Louis

The Southeast Missouri State women's basketball team saw its deficit balloon from a manageable six points at halftime of Saturday's season opener at Saint Louis to 20 within the first 4 minutes, 9 seconds after the break.

The Redhawks were unable to pull back within double figures of the Billikens and lost 67-52 at Chaifetz Arena.

"I'm proud of the fight that our players had," first-year Southeast coach Rekha Patterson said. "We were up against a veteran team, who were playing at home. There were times in the game that they showed they were a seasoned basketball team, but we did not give up. And we fought, and I'm proud of that."

The Billikens led 11-9 at the end of the first quarter and had a 29-23 advantage at the half.

SLU opened the third quarter on a 16-2 run that made it 45-25 with 5:51 left in the quarter. Southeast went 1 for 7 in that stretch and turned the ball over four times.

"We were just talking about that as a coaching staff -- we were getting shots, and we were getting shots that we wanted. But they weren't going in," Patterson said. "Then Saint Louis was going on the opposite end of the floor and finishing their plays, and that's really where the difference was in that situation. I thought they picked up their tempo, and we didn't adjust to that."

The Billikens went up by as many as 22 with a pair of Sadie Stipanovich free throws with 3:42 left in the third. The Redhawks closed out the quarter on a 10-3 run that made it 52-37 going to the fourth.

Southeast pulled as close as 11 twice in the final 10 minutes. An Olivia Hackmann jumper made it 53-42 before Jamesia Price answered with a 3-pointer on the other end.

Connor King knocked down her second 3 of the game with 4:49 remaining that pulled Southeast within 60-49.

SLU missed a 3-pointer on the other end, but Southeast missed on its next two possessions and turned the ball over to keep the deficit at 11.

Price knocked down another 3 with 3:01 left to push the Billikens' lead to 63-49 and all but seal the win.

"I think the fight, for sure," Patterson said of the positives from the loss. "The fact that I looked at them in a timeout and said, 'There's nothing that we can talk about Xs and Os-wise here. This is about heart and toughness,' and I thought they responded to that."

Bri Mitchell led Southeast with 18 points on 50-percent shooting. She had six rebounds and four assists.

Mitchell had the first seven points of the game for Southeast and had 13 at the half, but Patterson said SLU adjusted its defense to cut off some of the easy lanes she had early in the game.

"You know, Bri really likes to say she's from Memphis and she's tough, and I thought today she played exactly that way," Patterson said. "I think we started out a little tight, but her fearlessness allowed her to play the way she did that first half."

Hackmann added 12 points and five rebounds while King finished with 10 points on 4-of-6 shooting and seven rebounds. Sophomore Deja Jones had 11 rebounds.

The Redhawks, who committed 17 turnovers, shot 31.3 percent from the field and made just 2 of 16 3-point attempts. They were 10 of 17 from the free-throw line.

Jackie Kemph led SLU with 15 points. Price scored 14 and Stipanovich had 11 points and 11 rebounds. Maddison Gitts had 11 points and five rebounds.

The Billikens shot 38.1 percent from the floor and made 5 of 29 3s. They were 14 of 20 on free throws and had 14 turnovers.

Southeast dropped to 0-1 on the season and hosts Harris-Stowe at 6:30 p.m. Monday at the Show Me Center.

"This is the first time we all were put in hot water, and the question was, 'How are we going to respond?'" Patterson said. "We have to look back and see why the things that happened in that third quarter happened where it went from being a 6-point game to being a 20-point game, it seemed like, fairly quickly.

"Fix those issues and then I think our tempo. I thought our tempo was not great, and not necessarily just fastbreak, but our tempo in our half-court set. So those are things that we can do better, and I want us talking about new mistakes after game 2 and new mistakes after game 3. And I want us to look back later on at this game and say, 'Look how far we've come.'"

The Redhawks' home opener will be Monday Night Madness. There will be prizes and giveaways for students in attendance as well as a raffle. The first 150 students receive a card for a free Chick-fil-A sandwich.