Fighting for OVC Tourney position, Southeast women take on Lindenwood, WIU

Southeast's Da'Kariya Jackson surveys the floor during a Tuesday, January 14, 2025 game between the Southeast Missouri State Redhawks and the Little Rock Trojans at the Show Me Center in Cape Girardeau, Mo. Little Rock defeated Southeast, 67-63.

Tony Capobianco ~ tcapobianco@semoball.com

We’re starting to get into the meat and potatoes of conference play, and Southeast women’s basketball is in a make-or-break spot of its Ohio Valley slate with the final two legs of a three-game road trip coming up.

Over the next three days, the Redhawks travel to Lindenwood on Thursday and then take on the Leathernecks of Western Illinois on Saturday.

As it stands, the Redhawks are placed ninth in the Ohio Valley Conference on Wednesday, with a 2-6 conference record matching that of Morehead State but sitting below the eighth-ranked Eagles by way of head-to-head tiebreak.

With a 4-13 overall record this year, the Redhawks are in a spot where they need to win their “gimme” games, and so far they’ve done that with wins over SIUE and Tennessee State.

The two teams ranked below the Redhawks so far through league play, the Cougars and Tigers rank 10th and 11th in the OVC going into late January, and Southeast is lucky enough to play them two more times later this season.

That being said, this weekend presents two great opportunities for the Redhawks to prove themselves, with games against No. 4 Lindenwood and No. 7 Western Illinois.

The Lions of St. Charles, Missouri, present a 6-2 conference record so far, but both losses have come to the top two teams in the conference in Eastern Illinois, undefeated at 8-0, and Southern Indiana.

They have, however, knocked off No. 3 Tennessee Tech, and they rank fourth in the conference standings ahead of Thursday night’s tilt with the rival Redhawks, of whom they split with last year with the home teams winning each time.

With SEMO’s arrival at St. Charles on Thursday, it looks to undo its first loss to the Lions since they moved into the conference, and sitting in the fringe of the conference tourney once again, it’s an all-important win for both sides.

Lindenwood’s Ellie Brueggemanns’ 11.9 points per game leads the Lions in scoring, with the sophomore from Owasso, Oklahoma shooting over six 3-pointers per game and hitting at a 35-percent clip.

Gracy Wernli and Brooke Coffey enter the game averaging over 10 points per game alongside Brueggemann, with the sophomore Coffey averaging 6.6 rebounds per game to lead the board game for the Lions.

After the Lindenwood game, the Redhawks return home and quickly zip up to Macomb, Illinois for a Saturday tilt with the Leathernecks of WIU, the newest addition to a reborn OVC.

The Leathernecks have adjusted well to the new conference, sitting at 3-5 in league play in a tournament berth position while collecting a 9-8 record to sitting just over the .500 mark.

Western Illinois’s three wins have come against the bottom two, like SEMO, but also Morehead State as they break into the top eight with sights on the OVC Tourney field in March.

If the Redhawks want to sneak into the tournament picture by the end of this weekend, this matchup has to be circled in permanent marker: This is the kind of team that Southeast needs to pass.

The Leathernecks are led by a ridiculous 21 points per game from sophomore guard Raegan McCowan, from Lebanon, Missouri.

This spectacular slasher’s only shot 15 percent of her field goals from beyond the 3-point line, and she drops buckets at a 48 percent clip so far this season.

The women’s basketball squad tips off at 5 p.m. Thursday for its game against Lindenwood and at 1 p.m. Saturday against Western Illinois.