The UTM women’s basketball team saw a three-pointer by Chelsey Perry as time expired go offline in a comeback attempt, falling on the road at Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) foe Southeast Missouri (SEMO) 71-69 on Thursday evening.
With the loss, UTM falls into a three-way tie atop the OVC standings with Southeast Missouri and Belmont with five games left in the regular season.
The Skyhawks (15-9, 11-2 OVC) jumped out to an early lead in the first quarter, holding an advantage as large as nine points. SEMO would respond to trim the deficit in the final minutes before using a 14-0 run in the third quarter to take a lead it would hold throughout the rest of the game. Facing a deficit as large as 11 in the fourth quarter, the Skyhawks chipped away to make it a one-possession game and find an open look by Perry for a potential game-winning three-point attempt but the shot would go off the rim as time expired.
UTM struggled from the floor, shooting under 40 percent for much of the game before posting a 40.3 percent clip from the field while making just 4-of-20 three-point attempts. Perry, the nation’s third-ranked scoring, led all players with 36 points while tallying eight rebounds and five blocks in the contest. Fellow junior Maddie Waldrop also scored in double figures with 12 points and seven rebounds.
“We had our shot to win with the ball in the hands of the best player in the league but it just didn’t go in,” UTM head coach Kevin McMillan said. “When you look at it though, it wasn’t the final shot that lost us the game, it was the easy buckets that we missed throughout the game that came back to haunt us. If we make our easy shots in the first half, we win the game. We didn’t and SEMO played harder than us. They deserved to win.”
SEMO (19-5, 11-2 OVC) snapped a six-game losing streak against UTM and picked up their first win in the Show Me Center against the Skyhawks since 2009. Tesia Thompson paced the Redhawks with 22 points and nine rebounds while Carrie Shephard scored 12 points in the victory.
UTM will look to rebound on Saturday, Feb. 15 when playing host to Eastern Illinois. The game serves as the OVC Game of the Week and will be broadcast on ESPN3.
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