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CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. -- Maggie Kloak, Dominique Sims and Sydney Mitchell all scored 12 points and Eastern Illinois women's basketball shot 51 percent from the field, cruising to its 11th consecutive victory, 71-41, at Southeast Missouri State Saturday evening.
The win was EIU's first in Cape Girardeau since 2001, snapping a nine-game losing streak. The current 11-game win streak is now officially the longest ever in the 37-year history of the program.
Four Panthers scored in double-figures for the second game in a row. Ashley Thomas rounded out that quartet, scoring all 10 of her points in the first half. The 12 points for Mitchell were a career high, the second consecutive game in which the freshman has posted a new benchmark.
“[Mitchell's production has] been tremendous,” EIU head coach Brady Sallee said. “And boy did we need it with #Chantelle [Pressley]# being banged up and Ashley not playing on Thursday. We needed her to step up. She was aggressive and I thought she ran off the ball really well with some of the cuts she made in our offense. When we're making some of those cuts and playing like that, a lot of good things happen.”
Eastern (16-8, 11-1 OVC) tallied 20 assists on its 26 field goals. Ta'Kenya Nixon led the way with six assists to go along with seven points and nine rebounds. Sims also grabbed nine rebounds, finishing one shy of a double-double.
Three players off the SEMO bench – Brittany Harriel (12 points), Erika Lane (11) and Shelah Fields (9) – accounted for 32 of their team's 41 points. Three Redhawks' starters were held scoreless and Lesley Adams and Patricia Mack both fouled out. Southeast (7-15, 4-8 OVC) has been without three starters due to injury for a long stretch of the season.
The Panthers doubled up SEMO in the rebounding column, 40-20, tallying 16 second-chance points on their 13 offensive boards. Eastern also kept the home team off the free throw line. The Redhawks shot only two free throws and none in the second half.
The Panthers took control of the game with a 19-0 run that wrapped around the halftime break. Southeast didn't score for 11 and a half minutes, the final nine and a half minutes of the first half and the first two minutes after halftime. All 19 EIU points came from, Kloak (6), Thomas (6), Sims (4) and Pressley (3). Thomas connected on a pair of 3-pointers in the final seven minutes of the first half and Pressley capped the big run with a triple early in the second half.
Kloak scored seven consecutive points for EIU at one point in the first half, registering nine of her 12 points in the opening 20 minutes. Kloak and Pressley were a combined 9-of-14 from the field.
Eastern put the game away with 12-2 run in the second half. Sims connected on three field goals during the surge
The Panthers jumped out to an early lead with a 10-0 run after SEMO scored the first points of the game. Four different EIU players scored during the early spurt. But after a Mitchell layup on an inbounds play at the 16:33 mark, Eastern didn't score again for four and half minutes. The Redhawks put together a 9-0 run during the stretch, taking a one-point lead.
The game was back and forth over the next three minutes and was tied at 17-17 when the SEMO scoring drought began.
“Winning a game is a process,” Sallee said. “They made a couple shots that were a little bit out of the ordinary. We were playing good defense but they hit a couple 3s. I just knew it was a process. As long as we were defending and rebounding the way I wanted us to, I was going to be OK with it being 17-17. You saw it come out to play where our defense just wore them down.
“We just played really well tonight. From top to bottom, this was going to be a tough one with their injuries and the way we were playing.”
The Panthers swept their four-game road stretch and have now posted six of their 11 consecutive victories on the road. The six-game win streak on the road matches the longest of that sort during Sallee's six-year tenure.
Thursday's EIU-Morehead State game in Charleston will be a rematch of the top two teams in the Ohio Valley Conference. The Eagles (18-7, 10-2 OVC) have not lost since falling to the Panthers, 62-60, on Jan. 16 in Morehead. The Panthers, meanwhile, are the only team still undefeated at home in OVC play this season. The 5 p.m. start time is a half-hour early due to the 8 p.m. EIU-Morehead men's game being televised nationally on ESPNU.
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