Women's Basketball Advances to Sioux City with Opening Round Win over Xavier

LAKELAND, Fla.- The No. 10 Southeastern University women's basketball team is heading back to Sioux City for a seventh-consecutive season. The top-seeded Fire advanced to the NAIA Women's Basketball Championship Final Site with a 70-47 win over the third-seeded Xavier University of Louisiana Golden Nuggets in the Opening Round Lakeland Bracket A Final.


Defensively, the Fire shined, as they scored 23 points off of 17 turnovers forced on the night, held the Golden Nuggets to just 23.1% shooting from the field (15-65), and recorded five blocked shots.


SEU set the tone early on the defensive side, holding XULA to 1-19 from the field and two points scored in the first quarter.


Graduate forward Gabrielle Ozoude had a strong first half on both sides of the ball to propel Southeastern to a solid start. The Sun Conference Player of the Year scored 11 points and hauled in 11 rebounds in the first half. The Fire also received another impressive first-half effort from their other forward, senior Carmen Handy, who totaled eight of her 12 points in the first 20 minutes of play.


SEU took a 34-16 advantage over XULA into the locker room at halftime.


The Golden Nuggets showed a tremendous amount of fight in the third quarter, outscoring the Fire 21-13 in those 10 minutes of play and trimmed the deficit to as close as seven points.


However, Southeastern closed out the game just as they started it, with a solid defensive quarter of basketball. In the fourth quarter, SEU outscored XULA 23-10 and opened up the period on an 18-3 run. The Fire limited the Golden Nuggets to 3-17 from the field throughout the final 10 minutes of action.


Ozoude finished with 23 points 16 rebounds, three assists, and two blocks in her first career national tournament game. Senior guard Madi Hecox contributed 14 points (4-7 FG, 5-6 FT) and four rebounds in the start. Junior point guard Bekki Kalaydjiev led the Fire in assists with five.


The Fire will be one of 16 teams to compete at the final site in Sioux City over the span of March 18-23. The tournament will be reseeded based on this weekend's opening round results.