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Cape Girardeau, Mo. (Feb. 18, 2004)- The Otahkians are excited to run home for their final home-stand of the regular season. Southeast will host Eastern Kentucky this Thursday, February 19 at 5:00 p.m. in the Show Me Center. The game should prove to be extremely competitive and exciting as both teams come into the game in a three-way tie with Jacksonville State for third in the OVC, posting a 9-4 OVC record thus far.

Scouting Southeast...Southeast (12-10, 7-4 OVC) will look to extend both its home winning steak and overall winning streak to six and move ahead of EKU in the conference standings with a win at home Thursday night.

Last week the Otahks went 2-for-2 as they downed Eastern Illinois at the wire 77-76 at home on Tues., Feb. 10. Then Otahkians then hit the road to improve their road record to 3-7 with an 87-58 victory over Tennessee State on Sat., Feb. 14. Against EIU, junior Sami Jo Cotton lit up to the lead the way with 20 points and six three-pointers. At TSU, the bench made a huge impact as they combined to net 49 of the squad's 87 points. Reserve forward Miah Shelford led all-scorers on the evening with an outstanding career-best performance of 19 points.

Senior Kenja White just barely claims the squad's leading point-scorer role over Cotton, as they average 11.1 and 11.0 points per contest. Cotton is unstoppable as off late, averaging 14.5 points and 4.5 three-pointers per contest over a two-game span Yashika Sidbury is really nailing buckets as of late as well, increasing her average to 9.6 points per game, after scoring in double-digits for four consecutive games.

As a squad, Southeast leads the conference in both steals per game (10.5) and three-point field goals made per game (7.3).

Scouting Eastern Kentucky...The Lady Colonels (12-11, 8-4 OVC) were busy last week, playing three consecutive games and winning all three, increasing their win streak to four straight. On Monday night they dealt Tennessee State a 66-43 blow, going on to defeat Samford 64-48 on Saturday and closed the week with a slim win over Jacksonville State.

In their most recent contest against JSU, the Lady Colonels opened the game with a 21-9 run, then built the lead up to 16 with 8:38 remaining in the half. JSU cut the lead to six, but EKU increased the spread back up to 12 at intermission. EKU got the first point of the second, but the Gamecocks outscored EKU 11-2 over the next seven minutes to pull within five, then cut it to two. EKU closed with an 8-4 run to seal the victory as Katie Kelly led the team to victory with a career-high 28 points.

Kelly leads coach Larry Inman's squad on the season, netting 17.1 points per outing on an average of five field goals per contest. Teammate Laura Shelton claims the squad's top helper position, dishing out 3.4 assists per game, while Pam Garrett leads the squad in rebounds (5.3) and steals (1.8) per game.

Up next...As the season winds down, Southeast will host its final home game of the regular season this Saturday, Feb. 21 against Morehead State at 5:00 p.m. Halftime will feature a special ceremony for the departing seniors.