JACKSONVILLE – The Jacksonville State women's basketball team avenged its worst conference loss of the season on Thursday, pounding Southeast Missouri, 72-51, inside Pete Mathews Coliseum.
 
It was the second-straight matchup for JSU (12-14, 8-7 Ohio Valley Conference) against a team sitting with a share of the lead in the conference standings. After the RedHawks (20-6, 12-3 OVC) defeated JSU by 27 earlier in the month in Cape Girardeau, Mo., the Gamecocks answered the bell with a 21-point victory of their own. The only team in the league with 20 overall wins, SEMO's offense was averaging 74.2 points per game prior to being held to the second-fewest points all season on Thursday.
 
A trio of Gamecocks reached double figures led by sophomore Yamia Johnson who finished with 16 after scoring 14 in the second half, shooting perfect from the field and 3-of-4 from the stripe. Graduate Destiney Elliott tallied 14 points, while junior Taylor Hawks added 13 in her 45th career double-digit game. Those three hit eight of JSU's 12 three-pointers on the night as Jax State continues to extend its new program mark for treys in a single season.
 
The first three came from Hawks two minutes into the contest to make it 6-0. Redshirt-senior Chloe Long, who paced JSU with eight rebounds and five assists, added a bucket later on to make it 10-0, and capped the opening run with a free throw before SEMO ever scored.
 
An 11-0 start was 15-8 after the first period, but a 9-0 JSU run to begin the second quickly made it a 24-8 contest after triples by McKenna Lawrence and Nekiyah Thompson. The lead was almost the same at the halftime break, but a RedHawk three just before the horn cut it to 11 at 28-17.
 
The barrage of deep shots was just getting started for JSU as Johnson was a perfect 3-of-3 from beyond the arc in the third as JSU hit seven of its nine attempts total as a team in the period to extend the lead to 26. In the fourth, JSU conservatively kept its lead intact as SEMO was allowed to breakthrough for its best offensive quarter.
 
JSU's 72-51 win tie for the most points scored against a Division I opponent this year (Florida A&M), and are the most in league play since last season's pink-out game against Tennessee State on Feb. 16 that saw JSU win 76-73 in overtime.
 
SEMO's Tesia Thompson led her team with 20 points on 8-of-18 shooting, while no other RedHawk reached double figures.
 
After knocking Southeast Missouri from the three-way tie atop the standings with Belmont and UT Martin, the Gamecocks now get its third-straight matchup with one of the top teams when it hosts UTM on Saturday at 1:45.