Charleston, Ill. --- For the third consecutive year, the Tennessee State University women's basketball team's OVC tournament run ends at the hand of Eastern Illinois. The Lady Tigers fell to the Panthers 73-56 in Lantz Arena on Tuesday night.

Oby Okafor and Nikki Rumph each tallied 11 points for TSU while LaDona Pierce added 10.

Maggie Kloak led EIU with 19 points and Ta'Kenya Nixon scored 11 for the Panthers.

Two quick buckets gave EIU an early 5-0 lead before Meredith Stafford got TSU on the board with a three-pointer. The Panthers stretched their lead to 16-11 before the Lady Tigers cut it down to 16-13 at the 12:21 mark.

TSU, however, went without a field goal for a stretch of over six minutes, allowing EIU to build its advantage to 28-14.

A triple from Nikki Rumph ended the Lady Tiger drought with 6:02 remaining in the half but the Panthers maintained a double-digit lead and went into the break leading 36-23.

TSU only had eight field goals in the first half compared to EIU's 15.

In the second half, EIU slowly built on its lead and stretched the advantage to 54-34 following back-to-back triples from Kelsey Wyss.

The Lady Tigers didn't give up and cut the deficit down to 61-50 after outscoring the Panthers 16-7. The run, capped by a lay-up from LaDona Pierce, lasted over a span of five minutes.

The Lady Tigers once again closed to with 11 points with 4:20 remaining but that would be as close as they would get.

Eastern Illinois never trailed in the contest and out-rebounded Tennessee State 47-33. TSU went 18-of-53 (34.0 percent) from the field, including 3-of-14 (21.4 percent) from three-point range.

TSU knocked down 17-of 21 free-throw attempts (81 percent).

The Lady Tigers finish the 2009-10 season with an overall record of 10-18.