Southeast Missouri State women's basketball team wraps up regular season with loss at Austin Peay

CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. -- Southeast Missouri State women's basketball coach Rekha Patterson wanted to see how her team would respond in its regular-season finale against Austin Peay on Saturday on the heels of a lackluster performance in its home finale loss to SIU Edwardsville a few days before.

The result -- a 74-71 loss to the Govs after trailing by as many as 18 -- wasn't ideal, but the Redhawks showed the first-year coach what she needed to see as they get ready to head to the Ohio Valley Conference tournament for the first time in seven years.

"Really, really proud of our fight and toughness, especially after the lack of that in our last home game," Patterson said. "For us to be down 18, which I really hated because we dug ourselves a hole by turning the ball over, we fought back. I will take that every day of the week. I told them I will take that going into Nashville.

"That was really important for me. I want to win. I always want to win, but how we played mattered. I'll take this. We can work on the execution. We can work on taking care of the basketball. ... But I will take that fight and toughness every day."

APSU took its first lead of the game with a jumper by Tiasha Gray in the closing seconds of the first quarter, which put the Govs up 15-14, and led the rest of the way. The Redhawks led by as many as six at 14-8, but were held scoreless for the final 3 minutes, 34 seconds of the quarter. The scoring drought continued for the first 2:07 of the second.

A 23-3 run to start the second gave the Govs a 38-20 advantage with 4:11 remaining.

Brianne Alexander scored the final five points of that run in a span of two seconds. She scored and was fouled, missed the free throw, but got her own rebound. She plowed over forward Deja Jones, who was whistled for the foul as Alexander scored again. She sank her second and-1 attempt to give the Govs their largest lead of 18.

Senior forward Connor King knocked down a 3 with 3:32 left in the half to ignite a 15-2 Redhawks run, cutting it to 40-35 at halftime.

"We played as a team. We played together," Mitchell said. "We came into halftime and said, 'We have to play like we played the last four minutes of the second quarter,' and I feel like that's what we did."

Southeast pulled within two with 7:40 left in the third on a 3-pointer by freshman Corneisha Henderson, who made her first career start. The Govs extended their lead to as many as seven and were up 57-51 going to the final 10 minutes.

The Redhawks got it down to four with 3:40 remaining, but a putback by Gray made it 68-62 a minute later. Southeast missed a 3 and turned it over in transition before getting it back to four again on a basket by Jones with 2:02 left.

Gray answered with a three-point play to make it a seven-point game with 1:31 left. Jones, who finished with a career-high 20 points and eight rebounds, split a pair of free throws and then got it back to four twice with layups with 50 and 20 seconds remaining.

"I just felt like I needed to do more for my team and my team needed more out of me," said Jones, who had 18 of her points in the second half and 11 in the fourth quarter. "They looked at me like, 'Deja, come on,' and I felt like for them, and myself, I needed to get it going."

APSU split two free throws with 18.4 seconds remaining before Mitchell drove and scored to make it 74-71 Govs with 12.4 seconds left, setting a new career-high with 24 points.

Following an APSU timeout, the Redhawks forced a five-second violation on the inbounds. Southeast's final possession resulted in a 3-pointer from Imani Johnson that was short and went out of bounds to seal the Govs' win.

"We were running a play for Hannah [Noe] because she shot the ball really well and then we had Imani," Patterson said. "I wish I had a timeout, but I needed to use the one when I did earlier. ... I think she was ready to shoot it before she caught it, so then she fumbled it and then that allowed the defense a chance to get up on her."

The Redhawks shot 44.8 percent from the field in the game and were 13 of 15 from the charity stripe. It was the 18 turnovers, which APSU scored 29 points off of, that were the biggest reason for their scoring lulls.

"I'm going to give complete credit to Tiasha Gray because even if she doesn't steal it -- it's almost like whenever I was at the coaching staff [at Baylor] with Brittney Griner," Patterson said of Gray, who finished with a game-high 27 points along with six assists and three steals. "Even if she didn't block your shot, her just being around made you think different. And I think, because we had to show them on film how she stole the ball against us the first time because we didn't want her to be a surprise, and she didn't get those steals tonight but because of just how good she is defensively, I really do think she played with our mind a little bit."

Southeast concludes the regular season with a record of 15-14 and 8-8 in the OVC. The Redhawks take a two-game losing streak into the conference tournament, which begins Wednesday in Nashville.

Southeast currently sits in fifth place in the standings, but the official seeds and bracket with matchups won't be released until after Belmont and Tennessee State face off on Sunday afternoon.

The Redhawks will carry either the No. 5 or No. 6 seed into the tournament. A win by Tennessee State will secure the No. 5 seed for Southeast, while a Belmont win will clinch the No. 6 seed. Either way, the Redhawks begin the tournament on Thursday.

"Let's not forget what our goal was," Patterson said of her message to the team. "Our goal was to get to Nashville and be playing our best basketball. A lot of times best basketball means you're on a roll, winning. And for a veteran team? Absolutely. But for this team, we bounced back from losses where we haven't played well. We bounced back from losses where we played OK. Now it's 0-0, you are playing in March.

"... They have until the men's game starts to feel bad about this. Then we get to be excited that there's a new season. A new season, and all we want to do is play as hard as we can to put ourselves in a position to see your name on Selection Monday. I would love for them to see that. Take this effort, clean up our execution and let's see what happens."

AUSTIN PEAY 74, SOUTHEAST 71

Southeast 14 21 16 20 -- 71

Austin Peay 15 25 17 17 -- 74

SOUTHEAST (71) -- Bri Mitchell 24, Erin Bollmann 2, Corneisha Henderson 7, Connor King 7, Deja Jones 20, Hannah Noe 11. FG 26-58, FT 13-15, F 21. (3-pointers: Noe 3, Mitchell, Henderson, King. Fouled out: None.)

AUSTIN PEAY (74) -- Sydney Gooch 10, Tiasha Gray 27, Shelby Olszewski 1, Samantha Norton 2, Brianne Alexander 5, Madison Rich 8, Beth Rates 10, Tearra Banks 6, Falon Baker 3. FG 28-64, FT 16-23, F 14. (3-pointers: Gray, Rich. Fouled out: None.)