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Game Notes

EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. – Eastern Kentucky’s women’s basketball team will begin a two-game Ohio Valley Conference road trip on Saturday at Southern Illinois Edwardsville.

Tip-off is scheduled for 2 p.m. ET.  The live radio broadcast of the game is available in the Richmond area on WEKY 1340 AM, and can be heard worldwide on EKUSports.com.  A free live video broadcast of the contest is available on SIUETV.com.

The game features a match-up of two of the top four teams in the OVC.  SIU Edwardsville, in its first season of OVC competition, is 13-8 overall and in third place with a 7-3 league mark. 

Eastern Kentucky is 11-10 this season and tied for fourth with a 6-4 conference record.  The Lady Colonels have their best league mark after 10 games since the 2004-05 team started 9-1.  EKU has already doubled its number of OVC wins from a year ago and needs only one more win to double the number of victories from last season’s 6-21 squad.

On Wednesday, junior Jade Barber scored 15 of her 17 points in the second half, including a run of seven unanswered, to lead Eastern to a 73-66 victory at Tennessee State.  Raechele Gray led the Lady Colonels with 18 points.  The Shelbyville, Ky., native dished out seven assists and had only two turnovers in 39 minutes on the court.  Alex Jones recorded her 22nd career double-double, finishing with 12 points and 13 rebounds.

Saturday’s game will be just the fourth meeting between Eastern Kentucky and SIU Edwardsville.  SIUE leads the series 2-1, with both wins coming in Edwardsville.  Neither team has scored more than 61 points in any of the previous three meetings.  Five Lady Colonels have faced SIU Edwardsville.  Jones has averaged 12 points and seven rebounds in two games against SIUE.

The Cougars feature a balanced scoring attack and two of the top rebounders in the conference.  SIUE’s top-4 scorers are separated by 12 total points.  Sophomore guard Jazmin Hill leads the pack with 218 points and a 10.4 scoring average.  Raven Berry, a 6-foot-1 forward/center, is the second leading scorer (10.2 ppg) and top rebounder (8.9 rpg).  Junior Michaela Herrod averages 9.9 points and 7.8 rebounds per game.  With 206 points and a 9.8 scoring average, freshman Katie Hempen is just a dozen points behind the leader.  Berry and Herrod are ranked third and fifth respectively in the OVC in rebounding.

As a team, SIU Edwardsville averages 65 points and allows 63 points per game.  The Cougars shoot 40 percent from the field, 32 percent from three-point range and commit four fewer turnovers per game than their opponents.

On Wednesday, SIUE scored an overtime victory at Tennessee Tech.  Melia Duncan’s floater with 5.6 seconds left in overtime gave the Cougars a 64-62 victory.  Hill scored a layup with five seconds remaining in regulation to force game into overtime.  Hill finished with 19 points.  Berry added 17 points and 12 rebounds.