By TOMMY REZAC
St. Joseph Post
The Missouri Western women's basketball team slowly pulled away from Northeastern State Monday. The Griffons led by 33 with 9:08 to go and came away with a 74-53 win over the Riverhawks at the MWSU Fieldhouse.
The Griffons (12-4, 6-2 MIAA) held Northeastern State to just eight third quarter points and were firing on all cylinders for the most part, but Northeastern State (4-7, 1-6 MIAA) limited the damage, ending the game on a 14-3 run over the final 7:37.
Still, Missouri Western had some impressive performances Monday. Junior Connie Clarke logged her seventh double-double of the season, leading the team with 16 points and 11 rebounds.
Junior Brionna Budgets had 15 points and four boards, while fellow junior Trinity Knapp scored 13. In all, 11 Griffons scored and Missouri Western tallied 24 bench points.
The Griffons scored 22 points off of 14 Northeastern State turnovers. Missouri Western held Northeastern State to a 36.7 percent shooting effort from the field, including a 4-of-18 mark from three.
"I always want our team to compete like they're competing for a national championship every single time they hit the floor," Missouri Western coach Candi Whitaker said. "It's challenging at times when you're playing a team and it's a bit lopsided, but we have to have more discipline, and I thought how we ended that game wasn't good."
MWSU men rally from big deficit, fall just shy in closing seconds
The Northeastern State men's basketball team shot lights out to begin Monday's game and led 32-14 with 7:33 left until halftime.
That lead ballooned to 59-35 with 13:04 left in the game. The Griffons turned the tide, outscoring the Riverhawks 38-16 over those final 13 minutes.
Missouri Western tied the game at 73 with just two seconds remaining after Julius Dixon banked in a tying three-pointer from the right wing. Shortly after though, Missouri Western's Reese Glover was called on a foul.
It was the 10th team foul on Missouri Western (7-5, 3-3 MIAA), putting the Riverhawks in the double bonus with just 0.6 seconds left on the clock. Northeastern State's Dillon Bailey made both free throws, and the Riverhawks prevailed 75-73 at the MWSU Fieldhouse.
Dixon, who had 16 points Monday, got a shot off from midcourt at the buzzer as time expired to try and give Missouri Western victory, but the shot missed and the Griffons suffered their second loss by two points or less in the last three days.
"I think we would have had a great chance in overtime," Missouri Western coach Will Martin said of Monday's result. "Obviously, we can't lose our mind. We have to know time and score. We're lifting Reese up and it's never one play. You can't be in a position where you're down 24 points. You can't do that. We turned the ball over too much in the first half."
Taye Fields led Missouri Western with 19 points and nine rebounds. Glover had 11 points on three critical three-pointers in the second half. Junior JaRon Thames, who's been limited with a left hand injury, played seven minutes Monday and scored 10 points, all in the second half, in just his fourth appearance this season.
"He was big," Martin said of Thames. "We've been waiting to get him back. We're always going to slow roll getting guys back, because their health is the most important, but this was a game that we wanted to utilize him. If it wasn't for him, we wouldn't have come back in that game."
Northeastern State (7-4, 4-3 MIAA) had a multi-pronged attack on offense Monday. The Riverhawks were led by Dillon Bailey and Christian Cook, who each finished with 18 points. Cook also had seven assists and six rebounds.
Rashad Perkins had 16 points for the Riverhawks on 3-of-4 shooting from three, helping Northeastern State to their first win in St. Joseph since February 2013.
Both Missouri Western teams go just up the road Saturday to face rival Northwest Missouri State. The women play at 1:30 and the men follow at 3:30 p.m.
Both games are on KFEQ (680, 95.3, 680kfeq.com).
You can follow Tommy on Twitter @TommyKFEQ and St. Joseph Post @StJosephPost.