SE Women Hold Off UAM Charge for Win

DURANT, Okla. – No. 21 Southeastern survived a second-half rally by Arkansas-Monticello thanks to a foursome of double-digit scorers en route to a 76-65 victory on Thursday night in Bloomer Sullivan Arena.
 
The win lifts the Savage Storm to 9-2 overall on the season and 6-1 in Great American Conference play heading into a 1 p.m. matchup with Southern Arkansas on Saturday afternoon in Bloomer Sullivan Arena.
 
"We started standing around," said head coach Darin Grover when asked about the start of the second half. "Let me back up.  We didn't see hardly any zone from them on film, maybe 25 to 30 possessions. It was almost nothing. So we haven't worked on zone offense since last week. We couldn't get it in to Katie. We were standing around shooting flat-footed with no rhythm. I thought it was a great move by them."
 
They couldn't defense us very well with our motion," he continued. "And they switched to that and it just got us stagnant. Then they came down and kept knocking down shots."
 
"I thought Katie Webb did a great job as always," said Grover. "She was great on the boards and she had to play a lot of minutes. I didn't expect to have to do that because in the first half we were leading by so much. I thought Logan, even though she didn't put up many numbers, I thought her presence defensively, especially in the first half, was big.
 
Katie Webb turned in a double-double in the contest with her third-straight 20-point outing, finishing with 20 points on the night on 7-of-10 shooting while adding a game-high 14 rebounds. It marks her second double-double of the season. In addition, Webb led the team in assists with five.
 
Kamryn Cantwell was next in line with 15 points, while Tracy Johnson hit three threes off the bench to finish with 11. Briley Moon rounded out the double-digit scoring with 10 points.
 
SE shot 48.2 percent from the field for the game, hitting the 50.0 percent of better mark in three of the four quarters.
 
Webb's 14 rebounds led all players on the glass, while Logan Oestreich was next up with seven and the Storm held a 36-to-32 edge on the boards as a team.
 
Webb hit 5-of-6 from the field in the first half and put up 13 points, while Cantwell and Moon each posted eight first-half points.
 
The teams traded haymakers early in the first quarter and would go to the media timeout of the frame with UAM holding a 14-13 lead with 3:15 to play in the first.
 
Coming out of that break the Storm would score the final seven points of the quarter, capped by a pair of Cantwell free throws with four second to go to mount a 21-14 lead after one quarter.
 
The second quarter was all SE as offensively the team shot 56.3 percent from the field while the defense held the Cotton Blossoms to a 2-of-14 effort from the field and would outscore UAM 21-11 for the quarter to hold a 42-25 lead at the half.
 
SE was held scoreless for the first five minutes of the second half as the Blossoms reeled off a 14-0 run, closing the gap to 42-39 with 5:57 to go in the third quarter.
 
A Jordan Benson layup at the 4:40 mark of the quarter ended the dry spell and kicked off a 12-0 run by the Storm that was capped by a Haiden Williams three with 1:56 to go in the third. UAM would score the final bucket of the quarter and SE would hang onto a 53-45 lead heading to the fourth.
 
UAM would again make a move and cut the Southeastern lead to four points with 6:47 to play and eventually closed it to one possession at 58-55 with 5:32 to play.
 
A Cantwell three would answer and after threes on consecutive possessions from Benson and Tracy Johnson the lead pushed back out to 67-59 with 3:17 to play.
 
The Storm defense would hold on from that point to pick up a 76-65 victory.