The Eastern women’s basketball team lost a hard-fought game to Ohio Valley Conference leader Southeast Missouri State 71-56 Tuesday night in Lantz Arena.

Senior center Pam O’Connor again led the Panthers in scoring, finishing with a team-high 17 points on 8-of-12 shooting. O’Connor has nine consecutive games scoring in double-figures.

The Panthers (9-13, 2-9 OVC) led for most of the first half and went into the locker room tied at 31.

SEMO came out in the second half and turned on the full-court pressure, but the Panthers never gave in.

The Panthers went ahead 50-48 for the first time in the second half on a lay-up by O’Connor with 9:46 to play. The lead would be the Panthers’ last of the game, as SEMO regrouped after a timeout and went on a 16-2 run highlighted by consecutive three-pointers from junior forward Natalie Purcell (nine points) and junior guard Katrisha Dunn.

The Panthers got to within 10 with 1:20 to go on two free-throws from junior guard Megan Sparks but didn’t score again as the Redhawks scored five unanswered points in the final minute to seal the victory.

Head coach Brady Sallee was pleased with his team’s effort as well as SEMO’s pressure defense.

“Our kids played hard, but that’s a credit to their system,” he said. “They put that pressure on you and wear you down, and eventually the legs go, and the shots we were getting to fall come up short.

“It’s a system that we’ve implemented here, and hopefully in a year or two we can do the same thing where we wear teams down.”

Sparks and freshman guard Kiki Bytnar joined O’Connor as the other Panthers in double-figures. Sparks finished with 11 points on 4-of-9 shooting, while Bytnar scored a career-high 10 points on 3-of-3 shooting in just 12 minutes.

SEMO (16-6, 10-1) was led by junior center Tatiana Conceicao’s double-double of 26 points and 10 rebounds. Conceicao, the conference’s leading scorer, was 10-of-14 from the floor, and 6-of-8 from the free-throw line.

Joining Conceicao in double figures was junior forward Simone Jackson who finished the game with 13 points.

The Panthers will look to bounce back Thursday as they host the Tennessee State Tigers (6-15, 3-7) at 5:15. The Panthers lost at Tennessee State on Jan. 15 58-56.