Murray State
Southeast Missouri State
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Lady Racers Exit Season With 80-49 Loss At SEMO
2/28/2006 6:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Murray State (11-17) was held to 24.1-percent shooting (7-for-29) in the first half, leading to a 35-19 SEMO lead at halftime. The Redhawks (20-8) shot 49.2 percent (29-for-59) for the game.
SEMO scored the first seven points of the game and got out to as much as a 12-4 lead before MSU freshman guard/forward Ashley Nichole Hayes hit a layup and freshman guard Amber Guffey hit a three-pointer to pull the Lady Racers to within 12-9.
Southeast Missouri used an 8-0 run to push out to a double-digit lead late in the first half, taking the 35-19 lead at intermission. A 7-0 lead early in the second half sent SEMO out to a 20-point lead, and Murray State would not get within 18 points for the rest of the night.
"The bottom line is: SEMO is aggressive," said MSU head coach Joi Felton. "Congratulations to them. They are a very aggressive team, and we didn't match that aggression. That's what we talked about during our whole preparation is that we had to match that to win. We came down and had a chance to make a run at it in the second half, and made some really sad turnovers and gave up some offensive boards at some crucial times -- the same thing that we've been trying to correct all year, and it just came back to haunt us tonight.
"We had Amber Guffey. I was really proud of her. She came in and gave us some good minutes and played hard the whole time. We just didn't battle tonight, and I take full responsibility for that. One thing that we're going to work on next year from beginning to end is we're going to be an aggressive team. If we don't do anything else well, we're going to be aggressive, and I've got to make sure that that happens next year.
"We did play aggressive at times (tonight)," she said, "but to win championships, you've got to play aggressive consistently, and SEMO does that, and that's what makes them a good team. They have some talented kids, but those kids play with confidence, they play with aggressiveness. That's what we've got to do. We played well in some spots, we played aggressive in spots, but there were some crucial spots where we didn't. We've just got to work at it on both ends of the floor. We've got to be aggressive on offense and attack, and defensively, we've got to get stops on defense and rebounds.
"We have a great nucleus coming back, kids who have gotten a lot of experience. Our freshmen had great freshman years this year. I think they contributed a lot, and I'm excited about them coming back. Then, we've got some experienced seniors coming back, hopefully ready to lead this team. We've got some veteran leadership coming back, and that's a good thing."
Murray State was led by junior forward Joi Scott, who had 13 points and a co-game-high two blocked shots. Guffey added 12 points on 3-for-4 shooting from three-point range. Hayes had a team-high five rebounds, while Guffey had four.
Southeast Missouri was led by Tatiana Conceicao, who had 23 points and 11 rebounds. Natalie Purcell added 13 points and six rebounds. Lachelle Lyles had eight points and eight rebounds, while Tiffanne Ryan had eight points and game-highs with five assists and three steals.
SEMO takes on Samford in the semifinal round of the tournament on Friday at 2 p.m. at the Gaylord Entertainment Center in Nashville, Tenn.
