The Eastern women’s basketball team watched its Ohio Valley Conference tournament bid chances and fourth quarter lead fade away as Tennessee-Martin’s Janekia Mason made a layup with 1 second left in the fourth quarter to give her team a 74-72 win over Eastern Wednesday night.

Mason’s game-winning layup capped off a late 13-3 Skyhawk run, in a game that had the makings of being a must win for both teams who came into the game with identical 4-7 conference records.

Eastern entered the fourth quarter with a 56-50 lead and would eventually hold a 66-58 advantage over Tennessee Martin with 6:13 to play. Then, the Skyhawks flipped the script on the Panthers. With 4:51 left, Tennessee- Martin began their game-deciding 13-3 final run.

The Skyhawks officially retook the lead at 70-69 with 2:11 to play. The score would remain there until Eastern’s Zharia Lenoir (18 points) made a three-pointer giving the Panthers the lead again with 1:10 left.

After the Skyhawks Kendall Spray tied the game at 72 with 35 seconds to play, Eastern regained possession and out the ball in the hands of guard Grace Lennox who missed a go-ahead jumper with eight seconds remaining in the game.

After grabbing the rebound, Tennessee Martin called a full-timeout with three seconds to go and drew up the play that led to Mason’s game-winning layup.

Lennox watched what was arguably her best performance of the year, a 25 point 10 rebound double-double, go for naught, while freshmen Allison Van Dyke added 10 points and eight rebounds of her own in the loss.

Tennessee Martin was led by four players with double digits in the scoring column, Ashton Feldhaus led with 21 points, Myah Taylor had 17, Spray had 11 and Mason finished with 12.

The two teams beat each other up with runs all game long. Eastern sprung out of the gate, jumping out to an early first quarter lead of 23-12 after shooting 10-19 in the quarter compared to just 5-15 from the Skyhawks.

Tennessee Martin responded when the quarter changed, opening the second quarter on a 19-4 run, eventually leading to them taking a 35-33 lead into the half.

Not to be outdone, the Panthers came out of halftime and shot their way to a 17-9 lead before the fateful fourth quarter.

Unfortunately for the Panthers, the game is not played on the stat sheet. Eastern outshot the Skyhawks 54 percent to 43 percent, outrebounded them 39-29 and held a lead for 30 minutes and 55 seconds.

Eastern did however shoot themselves in the foot, coughing up the ball 19 times leading to 17 Skyhawk points. For the Panthers, the loss drops them to 4-8 in conference (8-16 overall), poking a large hole in their conference tournament hopes.

Tennessee Martin moves itself back into the tournament picture with a 5-7 conference record. The Panthers will have a chance to get back into the win column on Saturday when they host Southeast Missouri in Lantz Arena. The tournament chances are not gone for Eastern, it just makes Saturday’s game a little more important.

JJ Bullock can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected]