The Southeast women’s basketball team fell 62-51 to the Indiana State Sycamores on Thursday, Nov. 29, at the Show Me Center.

Indiana State came out firing as they started the game on an 11-0 run aided by 10 Southeast turnovers in the first five minutes.

It ended up being a turnover-filled game for both sides as the Sycamores committed 28 turnovers and the Redhawks finished with 35. Twenty of the Southeast turnovers came on Indiana State steals, and the Sycamores converted them into 35 points. By contrast, Southeast scored 18 points off turnovers.

“It’s crazy because we talk about this every practice, every game — when we have less turnovers we win the game. And tonight it was just too many,” sophomore guard Tesia Thompson said. “It’s not that their pressure was really good; we didn’t have poise, we didn’t trust our teammates, and we didn’t do a simple thing, fake a pass to make a pass.”

Southeast coach Rekha Patterson also bemoaned the turnovers.

“We did a horrendous job of dribbling, passing and catching. That’s not even that difficult. Chest passes, bounce passes, stepping to the ball — fundamentals, that’s all it is,” Patterson said. “We practice passing and catching everyday, it’s something that we focus on. Maybe we need to go back to a good old elementary or YMCA practice and do some of those things.”

After Indiana State’s opening 11-0 run, Southeast settled in and outscored the Sycamores by a 10-9 margin in the final five minutes and trailed 20-10 at the end of the first quarter.

Indiana State opened the second quarter with five straight points in the first minute to lead 25-10, and Southeast then responded with a 6-0 run to get it back within nine.

After that, neither team was able to build a run as the Sycamores’ lead never grew to more than 12 and the Redhawks could not get closer than seven. The Sycamores led 33-24 at halftime.

The third quarter started out much the same as the first two quarters as it was Indiana State making a run to start the quarter, this time on a 10-2 run to push the lead to 17. The Sycamores took a 45-31 lead into the fourth.

Patterson was none too happy with the runs at the beginning of the quarters, especially the runs to start each half.

“I might need to change who we start with; I absolutely might need to do that,” Patterson said.” “We actually work on the first four minutes, we practice that. Coming out with intensity, coming out with passion, coming out with fire, working to execute. We practice the first four minutes so we’re ready for that. There’s not that much difference between the first four minutes of the first quarter and third quarter, you want to start quarters strong and end quarters strong, and we didn’t do that tonight.”

Indiana State took its largest lead of the night, 19 points, after a free throw by redshirt senior guard Tamara Lee made the score to 54-35 with six minutes to go.

The Redhawks went on an 11-3 run to cut the deficit to 10 with two minutes remaining, but never got it closer than nine and ended up with a 62-51 defeat.

“I think any loss, you can always take something from it, if you really want to,” Thompson said. “It’s within us. We got it. We just got to come with it.”

Southeast left points on the table at they finished 15 of 28 from the charity stripe. The Redhawks tracked down 18 offensive rebounds but converted that into just 14 second-chance points.

Thompson was the only Redhawk to reach double figures as she scored 23 of Southeast’s 51 points. Junior guard/forward Jessie Harshberger was next with seven points.

“We have players that can score,” Patterson said. “Carrie Shepard is someone that can score, Adrianna Murphy is someone that can score, Jocelyn Taylor is someone that can score as well. We need them to do the things that they are capable of doing.”

The Sycamores had four players reach double figures, led by junior guard Ashli O’Neal’s 15. Lee contributed 12 and senior forwards Kierra Isaiah and Regan Wentland chipped in 10 points.

“I was really disappointed in our effort and lack of playing really hard,” Patterson said. “One of things we pride ourselves on is playing extremely hard, extremely tough, and together. Unfortunately we didn’t do that tonight. The good news is, this is not the last game of the season. The things that we did not do well, we can correct.”

The Redhawks (2-5) will be back in action at the Show-Me Center on Dec. 4 to take on the University of Illinois-Springfield Prairie Stars. Tipoff is set for 11 a.m.