Late Storm Rally Falls Shy in Road Loss

MAGNOLIA, Ark. – Southeastern put together a furious fourth-quarter rally, getting to within two points but was unable to complete the comeback in a 64-60 road loss to Southern Arkansas on Thursday night in Magnolia, Ark.
 
The loss drops the Savage Storm to 9-13 overall on the year and 7-9 in Great American Conference play heading into a Saturday afternoon matchup with Arkansas-Monticello at 1 p.m. in Monticello, Ark.
 
"Shows you how big one possession is in a game," said head coach Darin Grover. "Like I told the team and Lauren there at the end of the game. We turned the ball over there, but that one play didn't win or lose it. It's the cumulative effect of all the negative plays we had."
 
Kamryn Cantwell put up 20 points in the contest, with 14 of those points coming in the fourth quarter, while adding a team-high seven rebounds and snagging four steals.
 
Chandler Kemp was next in line with 15 points while adding three steals on defense.
 
Briley Moon would finish the contest with 13 points, 11 of them in the first half, hitting a trio of threes and grabbing four steals on defense as well.
 
Southeastern would take early leads at 4-2 and 7-4, but following a Moon three at the 7:11 mark, the Storm would go scoreless for the final seven minutes of the quarter as SAU scored the final nine points to take a 13-7 lead after the first 10 minutes.
 
Scoring picked up in the second quarter, with Moon connecting on a three out of the quarter break but the Muleriders answered with back-to-back threes to take a 19-10 lead.
 
Six-straight from the Storm would close the gap to 19-16 and would eventually close the gap to 24-23 with 3:17 to play in the half on a pair of Woods free throws.
 
SAU would close out the half by scoring 11 of the final 13 points to lead 35-25 at halftime.
 
SE was unable to chip away at the deficit significantly in the third quarter as the Muleriders would stretch their lead to 13 points by the 2:24 mark of the third, but the Storm would close out the third by cutting the gap down to 47-38 following a Kemp bucket in the final minute.
 
Kemp would continue her scoring to open the fourth quarter with buckets on back-to-back possessions, getting SE to within five points at 47-42 with 9:06 to play.
 
SAU would push that lead back to double-digits, reaching as many as 11 points with 3:44 to play before Southeastern reeled off a 10-1 run that was heavily powered by Cantwell who had eight of those points, closing the deficit to 60-58 with 1:13 to play.
 
Neither team would score for just over a minute until the Muleriders connected on a pair of free throws with seven seconds to go, which was answered by a Cantwell bucket with three seconds left to again close to within two points.
 
However, SAU would hit its final two free throws to hold off the Storm rally with a 64-60 final score.