Good first half performances weren’t enough for the Southeastern basketball teams as they dropped second semester opening contests at Southern Nazarene last weekend.
The Savage Storm women tallied one of their best offensive efforts of the conference season but were on the short end of an 80-70 verdict. The Southeastern men, meanwhile, saw a tight game broken wide open with a 24-0 scoring flurry by the hosts in an 90-60 setback.
Both squads will be back home for contests this coming weekend when Southern Arkansas visits on Thursday night and Arkansas Monticello on Saturday afternoon.
Women
Coach Darin Grover’s club rode 60 percent shooting from the field to an 18-12 first period scoring edge but it was Southern Nazarene that steadily caught fire from there.
The host Crimson Storm rallied to knot the score at 29 at intermission and then exploded for 30-point third period to take command.
That advantage ballooned to as much as 16 points in the fourth stanza before a pair of Tori Kilburn buckets and Chloe Eversole tip-in with 27 seconds remaining narrowed the gap to 76-67. That was as close as Southeastern got, however, as the comeback bid fell short.
One of the biggest differences in the contest came from beyond the three-point arc as Southeastern was outscored by 15 points from long range. The Crimson Storm also scored 20 points off 20 Savage Storm turnovers.
Despite being in foul trouble much of the contest, Kilburn still led the Southeastern scoring production with 20 points and nine rebounds, sinking 10 of her 13 free throw attempts. Abbie Barr posted 14 points with 11 from Kenzli Warden and a season-best 10 from Eversole.
Men
A Chandler Dickinson three pointer with 15:50 remaining in the second half actually gave the Savage Storm a 41-40 lead but things soon went south for the visitors.
Freshman Jamal Drewery sank a pair of free throws moments later to cut an SNU advantage to 44-43 but that proved to be Southeastern’s final points for more than eight minutes. Two Santiago Camacho Gomez charity tosses stopped the monster scoring blitz by the hosts.
In total, Southeastern went ice cold on shooting with nearly 10 full minutes of possession time between baskets, shooting a tepid 26 percent overall following the break. Southern Nazarene countered with a scorching 70 percent shooting from the field over the same time span.
Only two Savage Storm players reached offensive double figures with Dickinson tossing in four treys on the way to a team-high 21 points. Ethan Wilkerson pumped in 14 points and also pulled down a team-leading eight rebounds. Deondre Dunn scored eight.
