The Eastern Illinois women’s basketball team continued their struggles on the road, suffering an 87-70 loss at Southeast Missouri State Tuesday night.

Down 39-45 at half time, the Panthers (7-7, 0-3 Ohio Valley Conference) seemed to be in good shape for the second half. Junior guard Megan Sparks had 18 points at the half and finished the game with a team-high of 20.

The Panthers were able to get the ball inside and get to the foul line, but they could not convert on their free throws.

SEMO (8-6, 1-2) out-rebounded Eastern by over double digits, which, along with 25 turnovers, proved to be one of the main reasons for the loss.

Eastern Head Coach Brady Sallee knows that his team had an uncharacteristically bad night from the foul line.

“We had some breakdowns defensively, and they went on one really big run (in the second half) that forced us to play catch-up the rest of the game.” Sallee said.

SEMO pressured the Panthers a lot throughout the game, which resulted in Eastern struggling on offense and turning the ball over.

“SEMO is a very athletic team, and they definitely played very good defense against us,” Sparks said. “They had a very aggressive press, and I don’t think we were fully prepared for that.”

Sparks said SEMO tightened up on defense even more in the second half, and Eastern started getting tired.

“We lost a lot of intensity in the second half, and they made some big shots,” Sparks said.

SEMO also controlled the glass, especially on the offensive end.

“They had a lot of easy put-backs with their offensive rebounds,” Sparks said. “Anytime a team has easy put-backs like that, the momentum is definitely going to go their way.”

Being .500 right now, Saturday’s game against Austin Peay at Lantz Arena will be a good test for Eastern to see how they bounce back after playing a tough road schedule.

“This is a key game to our season,” Sparks said. “This is a turning point in the year for us.”