Saturday, Feb. 25, officially sealed the deal for the Southeast’s women’s basketball team as they fell short to Austin Peay 64-74, capping off the team’s season.

The Redhawks looked to finish the season strong with a win and were rolling throughout the first half going into the locker room with a commanding 36 to 27 lead. Senior, 5-foot-6-inch guard Bri Mitchell, led the way scoring the majority of the team’s 36 points. She ended the game with 23 points on 9 for 28 shooting. The second half came along and Southeast couldn’t seem to open the lid on the rim, only shooting 28 percent from the field the rest of the game.

While on the other side of the court, Austin Peay rallied from a poor shooting first half of 34 percent, to an astonishing 61 percent shooting on 16 of 26 shots. Their star player, senior center Tearra Banks, led the way during the second half finishing with 21 points, shooting 9 for 15.

Southeast's women's basketball coach Rekha Patterson's main focus for the remainder of the season is the team's grit on the court.

“Toughness, bottom line. I do not want to be able to walk in a locker room and say another team played more tough and harder than us,” Patterson said.

If the team can take this into consideration every game, Patterson strongly feels like the girls can compete with any other team.

Patterson wants her players more motivated from the off season carrying all the way over to next season. She plans for the team to do bigger and better things next season.

“I hope to help all of them realize their true strengths and weaknesses and to encourage them to always play at their best and to never take a play off,” Patterson said.

When asked about her main goal for next season, Patterson expressed very high hopes for the team. “Hopefully we can make it Evansville to compete for conference championships, that would be great.”

Despite their loss on Saturday the team will still compete the OVC tournament. They play at 1 p.m. on March 1, in Nashville, Tennessee, against No. 1- ranked Belmont. Southeast aims to pull away with an upset.