The Southeast Missouri State women's basketball team got an early jump start and had an even better finish against Ohio Valley Conference rival Murray State by defeating the Racers 88-66 on Saturday at the Show Me Center.

Southeast showed outright domination in assists, steals and its 3-point percentage in addition to winning the overall turnover battle by 10.

Senior guard Jasmine Robinson initiated a quick offensive rhythm for the Redhawks by scoring Southeast's first six points, which began with a 3-pointer from a pass by sophomore guard Brianna Mitchell.

These six points were just the beginning of a productive night for Robinson, who ended the first half with 16 points on 7-8 shooting from the field and a career-high 27 points.

While Robinson's first half field goal percentage of 87.5, the overall first half shooting percentage for Southeast was pretty well itself as the team managed to shoot 52.9 percent from the field and 37.5 percent from the 3-point range.

In addition to a spectacular offensive output by the Redhawks, they were able to keep Murray State under 30 percent shooting from the field and under 20 percent from 3-point range.

The Redhawks made sure to seal their defensive possessions by not allowing a single offensive rebound and causing 12 first half turnovers, which led to a 14-point advantage going into the second half.

Maintaining the lead was never an issue for Southeast in the second half as the intensity and effort from the team never went into relaxation mode.

This mindset prevented Murray State from reaching their points per game average of 74.2, while leading to Southeast exceeding its offensive output of 59.4 points per game by almost thirty points.

"A huge win,that feels really good and I thought our effort was outstanding, and we had very good execution on both ends," coach Ty Margenthaler said. "I was very proud at halftime and we talked about a bunch of the positive things going on, but I also mentioned that Murray State is a very explosive offensive outlet team so we know that when it comes to scoring it could go from fifteen to three very very quickly."

Margenthaler's message to keep playing until the final buzzer in addition to the dominance on both sides of the ball carried over into the second half for Southeast.

The momentum and ability to score and prevent Murray State from scoring carried over into the second half as Southeast received key contributions from junior guard Olivia Hackman as she scored 18 points and recorded six rebounds. Guard play from Mitchell with 13 points, five assists and five rebounds also was a key factor for Southeast keeping the lead in the second half.

Robinson commented on the relaxation and overall fun that Southeast was able to play with even while being 10th in the OVC, which only allows the top eight to participate in the conference tournament, by saying that the team has nothing to lose.

Robinson added that even while the team has been able to click offensively, the increase in defensive pressure causing turnovers leads to some free baskets.

Up next for Southeast will be two games in Illinois as they try to make its end of the season push to get into the OVC Tournament.

The first game is in Charleston, Illinois, next Saturday as they face Eastern Illinois Panthers, then to Edwardsville to face the Cougars of SIU Edwardsville before returning home to close out the season against Austin Peay.

The game against Austin Peay is at 3:30 p.m. on Feb. 25.