Southern Illinois University
Drake University
Women's basketball falls in overtime to Drake 79-69
01/17/2009 | 12:00:00 | Women's Basketball
Jan. 17, 2009
By Kyle Herm
www.SIUSalukis.com
CARBONDALE, Ill. - The Southern Illinois women's basketball team (4-10, 0-5 MVC) battled back from a 10 point second half deficit, but fell in overtime to Drake 79-69 on Saturday afternoon at the SIU arena.
Drake (10-7, 4-2 MVC) held a two-point lead, 63-61, with 30 seconds remaining in regulation, but junior Karlee Myers scooped up an errant pass by Kelsey Keizer to give the Salukis the ball and a chance to tie the game.
Myers finished with a career-high 12 points, 9 of which came in the second half.
"Karlee was a spark plug," said head coach Dana Eikenberg. "I was looking for someone off the bench and she was it. She got to the rim and did a terrific job today."
Following a Saluki timeout, senior guard Erica Smith, who finished with a game-high 22 points, scored on a quick layup to even the score 63-63 with 21 seconds left.
The Bulldogs had a final shot, but Kristin Turk's jumper from the left corner went of the rim to send the game into overtime.
Drake charged out in overtime with seven unanswered points behind freshman guard Brittney McSparron and Turk to open a 70-63 lead.
Southern Illinois also missed its first five shots to fall behind by as many as eight points with a minute to play.
The Salukis trimmed Drake's lead down to five, 74-69, with 50 seconds remaining, but the Bulldogs made five out of their final six free throws to put the game away.
SIU finished the overtime frame 1-for-8 from the field, and 0-for-2 from 3-point range.
"We kind of hit the panic button in overtime, instead of being sure of ourselves and confident in what we are able to do," said Eikenberg. "It's disappointing, but nothing that we can't continue to work on."
Southern Illinois trailed by 10 at the 16-minute mark of the second, but came back to even the score 55-55 with seven minutes remaining.
"I thought we battled hard for 40 minutes, and I'm proud of this team for fighting," said Eikenberg. "Things weren't really going our way, but we fought really hard."
Free throw shooting though was the achilles heel late in the second half, which prevented SIU from taking the lead.
The Salukis finished the game 18-for-28 from the free throw line, and five of their 10 misses came in the last seven minutes of regulation.
Smith came one point away from her career of 23, and Freshman Olivia Lett also scored in double-figures with 12, and grabbed a team-high eight rebounds.
"The senior leadership from Erica is what she's capable of doing so easily," explained Eikenberg. "I thought she did a great job that way, and Olivia had a certain relentlessness to her."
Drake had four players score in double-figures, led by Jordann Plummer who had 18.
Southern Illinois will look to end its six-game losing streak and pick up its first conference win next Thursday, Jan. 22 at Indiana State at 6 p.m. CT.
