Lady Racers clinch OVC Tourney berth with 72-52 win over Eastern Illinois

Saturday, February 18

RSEC

4:00 p.m.

Murray State

Eastern Illinois

Lady Racers clinch OVC Tourney berth with 72-52 win over Eastern Illinois

2/18/2006 6:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball

It's been a long, hard battle from the first opening tipoff, but the Murray State Lady Racers have gotten themselves where they set out to be from Day 1. With its 72-52 win over Ohio Valley Conference rival Eastern Illinois this afternoon, MSU has clinched a berth in the O'Reilly's OVC Championship Tournament.

At worst, the Lady Racers (10-15, 8-10 OVC) would be a part of a three-team tie at 8-12 with Jacksonville State (10-15, 8-10 OVC) and Eastern Kentucky (6-19, 6-12 OVC). Each team split its games with the others during the regular season, so to break the tie, records against the No. 1 seed, then the No. 2 seed, and so on are compared. MSU beat current No. 2 seed Tennessee Tech (19-7, 15-4 OVC), while EKU and JSU each beat Austin Peay, the current No. 4 seed. Jacksonville State takes on current OVC leader Southeast Missouri (18-7, 15-3 OVC), but an upset of the Redhawks would eliminate EKU, keeping Murray State in the tournament. All tie-breakers between Jacksonville State and Eastern Kentucky are yet to be determined.

In today's game against Eastern Illinois, junior forward Joi Scott led all scorers with 17 points and grabbed a co-game-high nine rebounds to go with five blocked shots and five steals, both game-highs.

Junior post Erica Gordian put in 13 points on 5-for-10 shooting from the field and grabbed nine boards while handing out three assists. Junior guard Ashley Brooke Hayes added 11 points on 3-for-6 shooting from three-point range, while junior guard/forward Gerraca Matthews had 10 points on 5-for-7 shooting and swiped four steals.

Freshman guard Amber Guffey handed out a team-high four assists and scored nine points, while sophomore guard Shaleea Petty had three assists and two steals for MSU.

Eastern Illinois was paced by 16 points and eight rebounds from Rachel Galligan, while Megan Sparks had 14 points, five rebounds and three steals. Megan Edwards handed out a game-high seven steals, while Ellen Canale had three assists and three steals for EIU.

"We came out and played aggressive," said MSU head coach Joi Felton. "We shot poorly when we played there (32.1 percent), so we knew we would have to do better there. Our defense played very well tonight. We held Eastern's top scorer, Megan Sparks, to 4-for-14 shooting, and that was big for us."

Murray State visits Tennessee Tech on Thursday for a 5 p.m. game.