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After the first game, which began Saturday, was postponed due to darkness, the remaining innings and two more games between the Southeast Missouri State University Redhawks and Western Michigan University Broncos were held Sunday at Capaha Field in Cape Girardeau. Southeast won the first game 5-1, the second game 8-4 and the third game 9-8.

During a season in which it seems like not many things have gone right for Three Rivers, the Raiders still have a chance to come away with the third seed in Region XVI and host a region tournament game. Those chances received a huge boost Saturday with a momentous win. The Raiders trailed almost the entire way, erased a double-digit deficit in the second half and overcame a 34-point night from Steve Wooten to win 83-77 over the Cardinals. “Well, you know, biggest win of my life,” Three Rivers coach Gene Bess said. “That’s as simple as I can put it. I have two great assistant coaches that had a great scouting report on Mineral Area and did everything we could do to get ourselves prepared.” With Saturday’s win, the Raiders secure at least the fourth seed in the region tournament, and they need Mineral Area to beat State Fair in the regular-season finale to claim the third spot and host a first-round game.

PARK HILLS — The 16th straight win. The 10-0 home record. The No. 24 ranking in the country. The list keeps going, and now, the top seed in the Region XVI Tournament is added to it. Three Rivers overcame a huge run from Mineral Area in the third quarter to pull away from the Cardinals with an 82-68 win in Park Hills. The Lady Raiders had a 17-point lead in the third quarter before the Cardinals (19-6, 6-2 Region XVI) erased that and jumped ahead by a point with under a minute to go in the third. Hailee Erickson, though, showed her sophomore resolve with a huge sequence. “Every good basketball team is going to make a run, and Mineral Area is a good basketball team,” Three Rivers coach Jeff Walk said. “They’re not just going to roll over and quit playing. … You just can’t get excited, keep the kids calm, and like I told the kids, we weathered that storm and we came back in the fourth quarter. That’s great mental toughness.”

Scenes from Southeast Missouri State University's matchup against the Western Michigan Broncos on Saturday, Feb. 16, 2019, at Capaha Field in Cape Girardeau. With the Redhawks in a 5-1 lead in the bottom of the eighth inning, the remainder of the game was postponed until Sunday.

Three Rivers was dealt a dose of heartbreak Tuesday against Arkansas Baptist. After Tallon Fonda knocked down a pair of free throws to put the Raiders ahead by a point with under 10 seconds remaining in the game, Fonda was whistled for a foul on the other end while trying to contest a shot and establish verticality with 0.2 seconds to go. Jaylon Kinnard buried the first, and the second one rattled around the rim before falling to wrap up a 73-72 win for Arkansas Baptist. “I just think that was a bad call,” Three Rivers coach Gene Bess said. “The game rested on a call on a guy both hands in the air trying to avoid a foul. I don’t know how they got a foul out of it, but you know, you have to accept whatever it was. … We had two calls at the wrong time, but that’s kind of the nature of the game.”

The Southeast Missouri State Redhawks fell 81-64 to the Jacksonville State Gamecocks on Saturday, Feb. 9, 2019, at the Show Me Center in Cape Girardeau.

The Southeast Missouri State University Redhawks fell 56-39 to the Jacksonville State Gamecocks on Saturday, Feb. 9, 2019, at the Show Me Center in Cape Girardeau.

On Sophomore Day inside the Libla Family Sports Complex, both the sophomores and the freshmen got the job done for No. 25 Three Rivers. The Lady Raiders racked up 27 assists on the way to a 90-50 thumping of Jefferson. It’s the 15th straight win for Three Rivers, which hasn’t lost a game since Nov. 30, finishing its regular-season home schedule with a 12-3 record. “This game is always emotional with it being the sophomores’ last regular-season home game,” Three Rivers coach Jeff Walk said. “The kids, they want to go out a winner. You want to finish this game in particular. … Once we finally got going and started sharing the basketball, it just felt like the game, it got easier for them.”

The Southeast Missouri State University Redhawks beat Tennessee Tech 62-53 at the Show Me Center Thursday, Feb. 7, 2019.

Southeast Missouri State University triumphed over Tennessee Tech at home 71-66 in a game that went down to the wire and then into overtime Thursday, Feb. 7, 2019.

It’s hard to beat a team twice. It’s even harder when shots stop falling and the opponents are getting the key rebounds. That’s what the Raiders found out Saturday in their first game inside the Libla Family Sports Complex. The Raiders held a six-point lead against State Fair after Miganeh Jama knocked down back-to-back 3-pointers just over halfway through the second half. Those 3s were the Raiders’ only makes from behind the arc in the second half as they went cold from the floor after the sequence. The Roadrunners then ran rampant, hitting 3 after 3 and shot after shot as they went on an 18-1 run that spanned approximately five minutes. Three Rivers never recovered and dropped its first game inside the Libla Family Sports Complex 79-71. The loss is the Raiders’ fourth straight in-region loss after a 2-0 start. “They hit some key shots to stay in the game, and then we had a stretch there where we didn’t take care of the ball, and they scored two or three 3s off of it,” Three Rivers coach Gene Bess said. “That was a turning point in the game. … Wasn’t a whole lot we could do about it.”

The winning streak keeps getting bigger. Saturday, the Lady Raiders began a new chapter of their history, playing the first ever game inside the Libla Family Sports Complex. At the same time, they picked up right where they left off. They kept a tenacious defensive approach and combined it with torrid shooting in an 80-68 win against State Fair. The win is the 13th in a row for Three Rivers and their 20th of the season. It's Three Rivers' third consecutive 20-win season. After the game, Three Rivers coach Jeff Walk expressed how much Saturday meant to him. “I’ve never closed a gym out with a win and never won the first game in a new gym,” Walk said. “Tonight’s going to hold a special place in my heart.”

The Lady Raiders put on a defensive clinic Saturday against Moberly Area. Through 20 minutes, Three Rivers had forced 19 turnovers and scored 25 points off those turnovers. The Lady Greyhounds tallied 21 total points in the first half on 33 percent shooting from the field. Three Rivers rode that tenacious defensive effort to a 73-47 win against Moberly Area to improve to 5-0 in Region XVI play. An’Nyah Pettus led the Lady Raiders in scoring with 11 points, but seven other players scored at least eight points for Three Rivers in a nearly perfect all-around performance.

Three Rivers put up a much better fight against Moberly Area Saturday than it did in a 26-point road loss on Jan. 26 against the Greyhounds. Except for one area. The Raiders had a minus-31 rebounding differential, allowing the Greyhounds to snag 65 total rebounds and 31 offensive boards. Thirty second-chance points from Moberly Area helped them walk out of the Bess Activity Center with a 103-92 victory for its 11th straight win. Three Rivers was handed its fifth loss in a row and third straight in Region XVI play after a 2-0 start. “It’s hard to compete and it’s hard to have fun when you can’t rebound,” Three Rivers coach Gene Bess said. “... I’d like to have just one guy just to hammer the boards, but we really just don’t have that, but I think we proved we can play. We proved we can play with Moberly, and we just have to find a way to rebound.” Saturday’s game featured the second of two matchups between the nation’s top scorers in Alonzo Verge Jr. and Tristan Jarrett. Verge finished his night with 37 points, 10 rebounds, seven assists and four steals in 39 minutes. Jarrett tallied 28 points, 11 rebounds, eight assists and three steals while playing all 40 minutes as two of the top players in the NJCAA battled it out.

Southeast Missouri State University defeated Eastern Illinois University 64-59 on Saturday, Jan. 26, 2019, at the Show Me Center in Cape Girardeau.

Southeast Missouri State University defeated Eastern Illinois University 72-57 on Saturday, Jan. 26, 2019, at the Show Me Center in Cape Girardeau.

The Redhawks won a close game at home over the SIUE Cougars Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019.

The Redhawks lost 87-86 to the SIUE Cougars at home Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019.

The Lady Raiders are trying to run away with the top spot in Region XVI before January even ends. Saturday, they earned their 11th win by 20 or more points in a rout against Crowder. Three Rivers was tested in the first and third quarters but outscored the Lady Roughriders 22-11 in the second and 31-15 in the fourth to run away with an 81-56 home win. The win was the ninth in a row for Three Rivers. Jordan Little led the way with 18 points and five assists on a 5-of-11 clip from downtown in a team-high 31 minutes. It was Little’s 13th time scoring in double figures this season, and her five assists tied a season-high.

Three Rivers lost to Link Year Prep in a hard-fought game as the Lions went on a 5-0 run to come away with a 91-85 win Tuesday at the Bess Activity Center. Tristan Jarrett scored a game-high 41 points, three shy of his season high.

Southeast Missouri State University fell to Murray State at the Show Me Center Saturday, Jan. 12, 2019. Murray State won 64-59.