NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Eastern women’s basketball head coach Brady Sallee sighed for relief following Friday’s Ohio Valley Conference semifinal game against Tennessee Martin at Bridgestone Arena.

Although the Panthers defeated the Skyhawks 65-51, Sallee said Eastern’s opponent played hard the entire game.

“They played every step of the way with us and as anybody could see, we didn’t have an easy time at all with them tonight,” Sallee said.

In the end, Eastern made the most plays for the win, Sallee said.

With the score tied 43-all with 10 minutes left, the Panthers went on a 22-8 run to finish regulation.

The Panthers found good effort plays throughout their roster, with big ones coming from freshman guard Ta’Kenya Nixon and senior guards Dominique Sims and Ashley Thomas.

Sims made her big play by following up a missed shot, grabbing the offensive rebound and going up strong for the bucket and the foul.

“Coach Lee (Buchanan) was the one that told me that I need to go to the offensive boards,” Sims said. “That’s where a lot of my points come from. I thought the shot was off, grabbed the ball and went up strong.”

Thomas drained a big three-pointer with 4:05 left, extending Eastern’s emerging lead to 12 points – the first double-digit lead in the game.

“Everybody contributed as far as getting second chance points,” Sims said. “Those are big in games like this.”

When Eastern started its run, the Skyhawks were about out of gas, having played four of seven players 38 or more game minutes.

“We have to have a break or two,” Tennessee Martin head coach Kevin McMillan said. “There were four straight calls that could’ve gone either way. We needed one to keep us going, but when we didn’t get it, that took some wind out of our sail.”

For the Skyhawks, the ultimate dagger was watching Nixon hit her ninth and 10th three-pointers of the season.

“She’s just so explosive,” McMillan said. “Nixon has really been the only girl this year that has just blown right by us.”

In Nixon’s mind, she said she was not even thinking she was taking a three. Instead, she just put up the open shot.

“Coach Lee (Buchanan) has been working on my shot,” Nixon said. “We’ve been working together on improving it. I didn’t think about it, it just went in.”

After Nixon’s threes, Sims said the defense shouldered the victory by coming through in the clutch.

“It was all about defensive stops,” Sims said. “We had to get it on defense in order to get points at the other end.”

Eastern converted its clutch defense into six fast-break points and 10 points off turnovers.

“Their defense is just so good,” McMillan said. “They’re team is so long and Nixon can do so much with her speed that it makes it really difficult.”

The Panthers locked in their spot in the OVC title game, set to begin at 3 p.m. Saturday. They will play the winner of the Morehead State-Austin Peay game, to be decided later today.

Alex McNamee can be reached at 581-7944 or [email protected].