Cape Girardeau, Mo. –

The two best teams in the Ohio Valley Conference did not look like it on Thursday night.

However, Southeast Missouri was able to hold off Eastern, 46-41, to take the Redhawks a step closer for the regular season OVC title.

The Redhawks (18-6, 13-2 OVC) now have a one-game lead on the Panthers in the conference.

The top teams in the OVC average more than 63 points, but both were sluggish in the first and the second half.

Eastern (14-11, 13-4) is still seeking its first conference title, but was unable to find its offense as the Panthers turned the ball over 27 times.

SEMO, on the other hand, is seeking its third-straight OVC regular season title.

“We were pretty mentally tough,” Southeast Missouri head coach John Ishee said. “It doesn’t win the OVC for us, but it puts us a game closer.”

The Redhawks have also won the past two OVC Tournaments and earned the league’s automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament.

“This was a huge game,” Southeast Missouri junior forward Rachel Blunt said. “Basically now we’ve got our last four or five games at home. It puts us in the driver’s seat.”

Eastern’s turnovers did not help them create their offense as the Panthers finished with a season-low in points (41). It is the lowest amount of points since a 63-41 loss against Samford on Feb. 3, 2007.

“For whatever we reason we spent most of the game not executing,” Eastern head coach Brady Sallee said. “They did a good job of taking our post entry game away. I’m not real excited about what we did offensively either. Clearly, we’ve been a whole lot better.”

Southeast Missouri finished with 13 steals, but the majority of Eastern’s turnovers were traveling calls.

Eastern sophomore guard Ashley Thomas took too many steps after receiving a pass from sophomore guard Jessica Huffman to set up an open 3-pointer with 13 seconds remaining in the game.

“It was ourselves,” Huffman said of Eastern’s turnovers “I think a lot of the (problems) were Eastern Illinois.”

Huffman who averaged 5.86 turnovers last season did not have a single turnover at the Show Me Center.

The inordinate amount of turnovers limited Eastern’s high-low offense until late in the second half.

Post entry passes to Eastern junior forward Rachel Galligan, sophomore forward Maggie Kloak and even Thomas resulted in layups to bring the Panthers within three points, 33-30, with less than seven minutes to go.

“We really changed the offense a little bit, and made some adjustments,” Sallee said. “We went to a high-low look. We couldn’t make the plays to get over the hump.”

Galligan led the Panthers with 14 points. Kloak added nine and Huffman scored seven.

Southeast Missouri junior guard Sonya Daugherty led her team with 11 points. SEMO junior guard Ashley Lovelady and SEMO senior center Missy Whitney added 9 each.