Missouri State pulled away in the fourth quarter at Southern Illinois, setting up one of the more important weekends for the Lady Bears this season as they contend for a Missouri Valley Conference regular season title.
A 62-52 win precedes a Friday matchup with first-place Belmont and a Sunday showdown with Murray State.
The Lady Bears lost 66-55 to the Bruins in Nashville on Jan. 26 before beating Murray State 84-74 two days later.
Missouri State is currently a game behind Belmont in the Valley standings. Tipoff is at 6:30 p.m. with the game against the Racers set for Super Bowl Sunday at 2 p.m.
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Lacy Stokes and Jade Masogayo each scored 14 points for the Lady Bears on Saturday with Kyrah Daniels adding 10. The team limited the Salukis to 39% shooting with only two of their players scoring more than four points.
MSU went into the fourth quarter hanging on to a two-point lead. The Lady Bears scored the first six points of the fourth and didn’t allow a Salukis bucket for nearly five minutes.
Wyatt D. Wheeler is a reporter and columnist with the Springfield News-Leader. You can contact him at 417-371-6987, by email at wwheeler@news-leader.com or X at @WyattWheeler_NL.
This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Missouri State Lady Bears top Southern Illinois in MVC basketball
