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December 22, 2008

No. 21 Cowgirls rout E. Kentucky 90-35

STILLWATER (AP) — Oklahoma State head coach Kurt Budke knew his squad might be a little slow out of the gate Monday night after playing their fifth game in less than a week and returning from a weekend road trip to Las Vegas.

With about 10 minutes to play before intermission, Budke had his team turn up the defensive pressure against Eastern Kentucky and the result was a 29-10 run to end the first half and an easy 90-35 victory.

“I thought the kids brought good energy. I was a little concerned that we might come out flat with a fourth game in five or six days, but they played with good energy all night,” said Budke. “There are some things still that I’m never going to be satisfied with, things we have to do better, and I talked to them a little bit about that after the game.”

Oklahoma State (8-2) opened the second half with a 20-2 run and held the Lady Colonials to a season-low in points. Eastern Kentucky (3-6) had 30 turnovers, 15 in each half.

“(OSU) is a very nice team,” coach Chrissy Roberts said. “We struggled with their pressure but we talk everyday about being tough and about fighting. I don’t feel like we did that.

“We look at our non-conference games as helping us prepare for our conference. We aren’t going to see another Oklahoma State on our schedule.”

Andrea Riley, the Big 12 Conference’s leading scorer at 22.2 points per game, led OSU with 23 points, seven assists, five rebounds and four steals. Taylor Hardeman added 17, Tegan Cunningham had 16 and Shaunte’ Smith scored 12 for Oklahoma State.

Kayla Drake finished with a team-high 11 points for Eastern Kentucky and Colette Cole had seven points and five rebounds.

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