Following a first half that Eastern women’s basketball head coach Brady Sallee described as “ugly as all get out,” the Panthers took a two-point lead 37 seconds into the second half and never gave it back, winning the game 64-57 over Murray State.

Eastern (11-8, 7-1 in the Ohio Valley Conference) got into foul trouble with its post players, including senior forward Maggie Kloak and sophomore forward Chantelle Pressley who ended the game with four and three fouls, respectively.

With its post players sitting, Eastern’s guards had to step up and make some plays to keep the team’s offense rolling.

“It’s always tough when our post players are in foul trouble, but we just had to step up,” senior forward Dominique Sims said.

“We had to pack it in on defense, but that allowed them to shoot the three. We had to step up in a lot of places, but we hung in there and did really well.”

Murray State (8-11, 3-5 OVC) finished the game 7-of-18 from the three-point line, including sophomore guard Rachael Isom who shot 2-of-3 from three-point range – 8-of-12 from the field.

“She’s a really good player and we knew she would come out in this game and put up some points, so we just tried to contain her,” freshman guard Ta’Kenya Nixon said.

Isom finished with 19 points in 39 minutes; however, Nixon said she was taking difficult, contested shots.

Nixon finished the game with nine points and 10 assists.

She became the first Panther to notch 10 assists since December 2005 when Megan Edwards did it. Edwards, too, notched the number as a freshman.

“For Ta’Kenya, as bad as she shot the ball, she still found a way to get it done and almost finished with a double-double,” Sallee said.

Eastern also got big numbers out of Sims, who got a double-double with 13 points and 12 rebounds.

Sallee said it was Sims’ energy that made the biggest difference.

“I thought Dominique’s energy level was a big difference in the game and her getting the double-double,” Sallee said. “She had a tremendous night. She was playing hard, playing good defense and was a bear on the boards.”

The Panthers were troubled by a 21.6 percent shooting percentage in the first half, so they had to depend on other aspects of their game to keep them alive in the game.

“I don’t know what the deal was with our shooting percentage, but we have games where we just aren’t shooting the ball well so we have to do other stuff better,” Sims said. “We focused on rebounding and playing better defense.”

Once the second half came around, Sallee said the team started hitting their shots, which helped in getting the win.

“In the second half I thought we did a little bit better there,” Sallee said.

“It helps when you come out and hit shots. We hit some there in the second half and got a lead.”

After climbing to a 45-39 lead in the second half, Murray State crawled back into it, but Sallee said his team stepped up when it was “winning time.”

“When it’s winning time this team kind of has the right look to it, and that’s a good thing right now,” Sallee said.

The Panthers finished off the Racers and got their first win against them in the two teams’ last four contests.

Eastern’s next game is Saturday against Tennessee Martin (4-13, 2-6 OVC) at 4 p.m. in Lantz Arena.

Alex McNamee can be reached at 581-7944

or [email protected]