Southeastern women posted a pair of vital conference wins and the Savage Storm men got a buzzer beater on Saturday to split home games last week at Bloomer Sullivan Arena.
Tori Kilburn and Kenzli Warden each provided career best performances to lead the way for Southeastern women in a 73-59 victory against Ouachita Baptist as well as 91-67 against Henderson State to avenge earlier road losses to each team.
In men’s action, the Savage Storm fell to a late charge in a 7563 decision to 25th ranked Ouachita Baptist but shook off rough late shooting in a 54-53 victory over Henderson thanks to freshman Jamal Drewery’s game-winning basket at the buzzer.
Women
Coach Darin Grover’s troops set the tone for the week right off the bat with a scorching first period in the Ouachita Baptist triumph.
They connected on a blazing 72 percent from the field on 13 of 18 shooting while building a commanding 33-16 advantage and led the rest of the way. The Lady Tigers narrowed the gap to 41-29 at intermission and it was a 57-45 edge as well going to the final frame.
Kilburn was the early workhorse offensive and never slowed down as Southeastern powered up 30 points in the paint. The freshman stalwart connected on 14 of 23 field goal tries, including three treys for a season and career-high 36 points. She narrowly missed a double-double in pulling down nine rebounds.
Mackenzie Espinosa drilled a trio of three pointers and finished with 13 points while Warden also hit double digits with 11 points.
Another fantastic start propelled the Savage Storm in the Henderson verdict as they bolted to a 2715 lead through one quarter and once again held the scoring edge throughout. It wasn’t quite as good as the previous outing but the hosts still drained 58 percent of their first period field goal tries, sinking 11 of 19.
Those numbers set the tone for a terrific 55 percent shooting effort for the game which included 11 three pointers.
The duo of Warden and Kilburn nearly outscored the Reddies by themselves as they combined for 62 of Southeastern’s Great American Conference best 91 points.
Warden hit 14 of 17 from the field, including all five three point tries, while pouring in a career best 35 points. Kilburn wasn’t far behind, connecting 11 of 19 field goal attempts on the way to 27 points along with eight rebounds and six assists.
Men
Southeastern led 52-50 midway through the second half in the upset bid against Ouachita before seeing the Tigers score 13 consecutive points to take command.
The Savage Storm managed to maintain the initial advantage thanks to 50 percent shooting from the field, but cooled off considerably over the final 10 minutes and the Tigers were nearly perfect at the charity stripe while hitting 22 of 24 for the game (92 percent).
Three Southeastern players contributed double figures but none had more than 13 from Ethan Wilkerson. Chandler Dickinson and Tyler Long posted 12 points apiece.
SE’s Tori Kilburn is about to shoot the ball in last week’s game with Ouachita Baptist.
Coach Kelly Green’s club snapped a fivegame losing skid in the Henderson victory and somehow managed to prevail in spite of going nearly the full final 12 minutes of the game without a field goal.
A pair of Wilkerson free throws with 4:25 left put the Savage Storm up 52-47 and proved to also be the team’s final points until the buzzer.
Southeastern’s defense however hung tough and allowed only three buckets for the Reddies during that same stretch.
The final points came on a layup with nine seconds remaining before Drewery dribbled the length of the floor and got an arcing, off-balance baseline jumper to fall through the net after bouncing twice on the rim before time expired.
Southeastern hit just 28 percent from the field for the game but scored 20 points off a whopping 13 offensive rebounds that ended up being critical.
Dickinson was the only Savage Storm player in double figures with 19 points while Wilkerson added nine points and nine boards and Santiago Camacho Gomez scored eight.
