Nov. 1, 2007

By Shalae Patrick
www.siusalukis.com

Box Score

CARBONDALE, Ill. - The Southern Illinois women's basketball team, the defending Missouri Valley Conference Champions, put five players in double-figures and held Harris-Stowe scoreless for the final 10 minutes and 29 seconds of the game to open exhibition play with a 104-31 victory over the Hornets Thursday night in SIU Arena.

The Salukis' Jasmine Gibson scored nine of her game-high 28 points in the first four minutes of the game to push her team to a 9-3 lead. SIU didn't look back, scoring 47 points off 27 Hornet turnovers in the game.

"I thought there were a lot of positives," Saluki head coach Dana Eikenberg said of her team. "The game film is going to give us a lot of things to really improve on. I was really pleased with our ball pressure and the freshman did a good job and were comfortable."

Freshman Tanaeya Worden came off the bench to score 24 for Southern, including five 3-pointers, helping SIU reached the century mark during an exhibition game for the first time since Eikenberg has been head coach. The last time a Saluki team scored over 100 points in a regular season game was in 1984.

"I'm not sure that was the best defense we'll see all year,"Eikenberg said of the offense that shot 66 percent from the field, "but we took simple shots and attacked the basket hard tonight. Right now I think our offense is a little bit better than our defense."

Seniors Jayme Sweere and Cortney Sales chipped in 15 and 11 points respectively, Sales recording a game-high eight boards on the night. Freshman guard Ellen Young came off the bench to score 11 points, adding three boards, three assists and two steals in her debut.

"We tried to focus on getting the ball out and run because we're not really a big team," Eikenberg said. "We feel like we have the ability to outrun the other team and we want to take some easy shots if we can get them."

On the boards, Southern won the battle out-rebounding Harris-Stowe, 42 to 20. Gibson, along with newcomer Katrina Swingler muscled six each, while Sweere pulled down four and Erica Smith, freshman Paris Campbell and Young added three apiece.

The Salukis return to action Sunday when they take on defending NAIA Division I National Champion Lambuth (Tenn.) in SIU Arena for a 2:05 p.m. tip-off.