CHARLESTON, Ill. – Led by a double-double performance from Dominique Sims, the starters for Eastern Illinois women's basketball teamed up to score 52 points as the Panthers extended their season-long win streak to six with a 64-57 victory against Murray State Thursday evening at Lantz Arena.

Eastern (11-8, 7-1 OVC) opened the second half with a 15-4 run, busting open a tie game and holding the lead for the remainder of the contest. The win snapped a four-game losing streak against Murray (8-11, 3-5 OVC).

Sims led EIU with 13 points and 12 rebounds, posting her second double-double of the season and third career. Maggie Kloak and Chantelle Pressley both added 11 points. Ta'Kenya Nixon registered a career-high 10 assists, the most by a Panther since December 2005. The point guard also scored nine points and committed only one turnover in 38 minutes.

Rachael Isom led the Racers with 19 points on 8-of-12 shooting from the field. Tessa Elkins connected on a pair of 3-pointers and accounted for eight of MSU's 22 bench points.

The Panthers won the rebounding battle 51-42 and committed only 13 turnovers. Eastern collected 22 of its 51 boards from the offensive glass.

 

“I think the importance of what we were doing was offensive rebounds,” said Sims, who collected five of her 12 boards from the offensive glass. “We stayed in the game because of offensive rebounds. We went to the boards every single time. Then we got some second-chance points (13).”

 

The Panthers shot 47 percent in the second half after a lackluster 22 percent showing in the opening 20 minutes. Meanwhile, both teams struggled at the free throw line. The Panthers were 17-of-31, the .548 percentage being a season-low in OVC play. Murray wasn't much better at 16-of-26 (.615).

 

Pressley did connect on two big free throws in the final minute for the second game in a row, making it a three-possession game. The Racers chose not to foul after turning it over on their ensuing possession.

 

As the game hit the stretch run, the Panthers consistently threw the ball into Kloak on the blocks. She scored five of her 11 points in the final seven and a half minutes of the game, going to the free throw line three times. A Kloak miss also led to the offensive rebound and trip to the free throw line for Pressley in the final minute.

 

“In the second half I thought Maggie Kloak and Chantelle were beasts; that's what we need them to be,” EIU head coach Brady Sallee said. “When it's winning time, this team kind of has the right look to it, and that's a good thing right now. We had a timeout with six or seven minutes to go and I circled [the blocks] on the whiteboard and said 'this is where the ball needs to go.' And at the end of the game, we just pounded it in and pounded it in; we shot a layup, got fouled or got an offensive rebound. This team gets it. They understand where our bread and butter is and they play to it when we have to.”

 

Neither team scored from the field for the final three minutes of the game. A steal by Sims led to a breakaway layup for Nixon with 3:13 remaining in the contest. Kloak also made a key defensive play when she blocked a jump shot by Mariah Robison with two and half minutes to play.

 

Murray State responded to EIU's big run to open the second half with an 11-2 surge. Eastern's largest lead the rest of the game was the final margin. On two occasions, the Racers pulled with two points. But EIU scored next on both occasions.

 

The Panthers outscored MSU 9-4 after Kayla Lowe made it a 55-53 game with a 3-pointer at the 5:27 mark.

 

Pressley and Sims capped the 15-4 run early in the second half with three consecutive 3-pointers. Pressley hit back-to-back triples and Sims also connected from long range. Eastern had been 0-of-8 from 3-point land before the three consecutive makes.

 

The Panthers jumped out to an early 8-1 lead as MSU didn't score from the field until Robinson connected on a 3-pointer at the 13:52 mark. But then it was EIU that struggled through a drought, going nearly seven minutes without scoring from the field. Murray put together an 8-0 spurt during that stretch and led by as many as seven in the first half.

 

Eastern finally counterpunched with a 12-2 run. Ashley Thomas scored seven of her eight points in the game during that stretch. She finished off a fastbreak layup after a behind-the-back bounce pass from Nixon.

 

The Racers also had a highlight reel fastbreak that featured a behind-the-back pass in the second half. Mallory Schwab setup Mallory Luckett in similar fashion as Nixon

The two teams will rematch Feb. 20 in Murray. The Panthers return to action Saturday when they host UT Martin at 4 p.m.

More Info: Contact Ben Turner, Asst. SID