SE Holds on For Senior Night Win

DURANT, Okla. – Four Southeastern players would reach double-figures, including the lone Savage Storm senior Katie Branam, en route to a 68-63 win over Northwestern Oklahoma State on Senior Night on Thursday in Bloomer Sullivan Arena.
 
The win lifts the Savage Storm to 10-7 on the year and in Great American Conference Western Division play and will close out the regular season against Southern Nazarene at 2 p.m. on Saturday afternoon with the winner earning the No. 2 seed in the division.
 
"We knew we had to win this game," said head coach Darin Grover, "Or Saturday didn't matter. It wasn't a pretty game, but we ended up pulling out the win. It's difficult to learn lessons from losses, I'll go ahead and learn lessons from wins."
 
"What people don't realize about this level of college basketball," he continued, "And everybody who coaches at the small college level knows this. The division I teams, when they play games, before Christmas they may rack up eight or nine wins, and if you look at their schedules they are playing against teams that are lower level than they are. If you want to see how good a team is, look at their conference record. And teams at this level play basically all our games against equal or better opponents every single night."
 
Kamryn Cantwell led all Storm scorers with 18 on the night on a 7-of-11 effort.
 
Jordan Benson was next in line with 15, while Chandler Kemp added 12.
 
Branam, the team's only senior to walk for senior night, finished with 10 in the contest.
 
Cantwell and Moon helped power the offense with five assists each, while Kemp dished out four and Branam three.
 
Cantwell also led the way on the board with six, while Benson pulled in five.
 
SE finished the day defensively with 10 steals while forcing 21 Ranger turnovers, with Benson snagging four steals in the effort.
 
Southeastern made its most noise defensively in the first half, forcing 17 turnovers, nine of them coming on steals to hold a 16-5 edge on points off turnovers at the break.
 
The teams traded buckets to open the game, but the Storm would push its lead out to 12-6 on an Aimee Alverson layup at the 3:53 mark of the first quarter to take the first extended lead of the game.
 
However, the Rangers would rally and close the gap, taking a 15-15 lead on a pair of free throws with 1:00 to play in the frame which would hold as the score at the quarter break.
 
A NWOSU three would give the Rangers its first two possession lead of the game at 18-14, but SE would bounce right back with an 11-0 run capped by a Branam layup with 5:36 to go in the half.
 
Both teams went scoreless for a minute and a half before the Rangers cut into the Storm lead, closing to 25-22 before SE ended the half with seven of the final 10 points to take a 32-25 lead at the break.
 
The Storm would push its lead to nine points less than two minutes into the third quarter on a Kemp bucket, but the Rangers would again trim the advantage back down to four points by the 6:28 mark.
 
Southeastern answered and later in the third would push its lead into double-figures, taking a 48-37 lead with nine seconds to play in the frame before settling on a 48-39 lead at the quarter break.
 
NWOSU chipped away at the Storm lead once more in the fourth, this time using a 9-2 run to turn an eight point lead into a one-point edge in almost exactly two minutes, closing to 52-51 with 6:04 to play.
 
SE would find an answer with a Benson bucket, and the Rangers would close to within one point two more times, but both times SE found an answer, once on a Kemp bucket and finally on a Branam layup with 3:04 to play.
 
After pushing the edge to five a possession later, NWOSU would once more get to within one possession, this time at 60-57 with 2:14 to play, but a Benson three would stretch the lead to two-possessions for the last time and SE would hold on for the 68-63 win.