Savage Storm Rally Falls Short in GAC Opener

BETHANY, Okla. – Southeastern nearly erased an 18-point second half deficit but saw their fourth-quarter rally come up just short in a 68-61 loss in the Great American Conference opener at Southern Nazarene on Wednesday night in Bethany, Okla.
 
The loss drops the Savage Storm to 2-4 to open the season and 0-1 to start league play heading into the home conference opener on Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m. versus Southwestern Oklahoma State in Bloomer Sullivan Arena.
 
"You use so much energy coming back," said head coach Darin Grover. "There are only so many times you can do that. You could probably do it, but you've got to hit some shots and that wasn't happening, outside shots especially weren't happening. Inside we were doing a decent job scoring. You start a game like that, they play very physical, and they took us out of what we wanted to do. They pushed us off screens. Everything that they normally do, and we accepted that to start the game."
 
Caitlin Kobiske led the way for the Storm with a 22-point effort, hitting 9-of-13 from the field while adding six rebounds to lead SE on the boards as well.
 
Briley Moon was right behind with 18 on the night while shooting 6-of-8 from the floor and going 6-of-6 at the free throw line while dishing out a team-leading five assists.
 
Holli Lindley came off the bench and nearly hit double-figures with eight points, while Aimee Alverson dished out three assists.
 
The Storm opened play shooting 18.2 percent in the first quarter, but followed it up with a 66.7 percent effort in the second and shot better than 50.0 percent for the rest of the game, finishing the night at 50.0 percent exactly.
 
Where the Storm struggled was from long range where they hit just 2-of-10 for the contest.
 
SE would take an early lead, going up 7-5 by the 6:00 mark, but SNU would follow with a 15-0 run over the final six minutes of the opening quarter to take a 22-7 lead at the first quarter break.
 
Southeastern would score the first 12 points of the second quarter with a Moon layup at the 6:01 mark cutting the deficit to 22-19.
 
The Crimson Storm would stop the SE run and push its lead back to double figures, taking a 35-25 lead to the halftime break.
 
The gap would balloon to as many as 18 in the third, but Southeastern would score the final four points of the frame to trail 53-39 heading to the final quarter.
 
The Savage Storm would chip away early in the fourth but used a 13-5 run that began at 6:16 and ended on a Kobiske layup with 45 seconds to play which cut the deficit to 64-61.
 
That was as close as it would get as SNU would go 4-of-4 at the free throw line to push the final score to 68-61.