By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

The Ohio Valley Conference tournament is a chance for renewal for the Western Illinois women’s basketball team.

The Leathernecks’ 78-72 win over UT-Martin in Wednesday’s first round at the Ford Center in Evansville, Ind., was the first step in what coach JD Gravina called “a new season.”

Western Illinois (15-15), the seventh seed in the eight-team tournament, advanced to play third seed Eastern Illinois (18-11) in Thursday’s quarterfinal.

“We’ve had a little bit of a disappointing season. I think that’s worth saying,” Gravina said. “I think we’re talented. It felt like we got some bad breaks, and just kind of never got it going the way we thought we would in this conference. And so to get kind of over the hump here with the conference tournament win, to get to stay another day and battle again, it just really means everything. I mean, all that regular season stuff is in the past.”

“Like JD said, we’ve had our ups and downs,” said forward Mia Nicastro, who had 16 points for the Leathernecks, 12 in the second half. “We’ve maybe not performed in certain ways that we were hoping throughout this season, but come postseason and conference (tournament) time it doesn’t really matter. It kind of matters who’s willing to buckle down and fight for what they want. And I’m just so proud of this team for doing that today. I think every single person on our team showed an incredible will and fight to win,”

The Leathernecks trailed 60-55 at the end of the third quarter, but Raegan McCowan’s 3-pointer to open the fourth quarter started a 12-1 run that changed the momentum of the game.

“It was an extremely hard fought game,” Gravina said “There were a few small runs, but it just felt tight the whole game. I think they got up six in the second half. But I was really proud of the way we responded to that. We hit some big shots.”

UT-Martin (13-19), the conference’s NCAA tournament representative last season, got to within 71-68 with 1:42 left, but Mallory McDermott’s 3-pointer 32 seconds later ended the Skyhawks’ threat.

McCowan led the Leathernecks with 27 points and nine rebounds. Addi Brownfield added 15 points and seven assists, and McDermott, battling a calf strain, finished with 11 points while playing 27 minutes.

“Addi Brownfield, I think she played her best game of the season today,” Nicastro said. “We needed it.”

Western Illinois and Eastern Illinois split their regular-season games, but the Panthers got a bye into the quarterfinals.

“Our mentality going into this game tomorrow, personally, I think we have the upper hand,” McCowan said. “I think the last game they played was Saturday, so they haven’t played since Saturday. Whereas we come in, we have a game already under our belt, we’re kind of back into the flow of things. So I think it was kind of good to get back out there and get to the flow of things, whereas they’re going to be kind of coming out, in my opinion, cold turkey tomorrow. So I think, honestly, for us, that’s something that we have the upper hand on.”

“We knew to achieve our goals, we had to win four games in four days, and that’ll be tested tomorrow,” Gravina said. “I do kind of agree with Raegan. I’ve always felt like the way this tournament sets up, sometimes it can help if you’ve already got a win. You’ve got that confidence building.”

Top photo: Western Illinois’ Raegan McCowan is defended by UT-Martin’s Morgan Borgstedt in Wednesday’s Ohio Valley Conference tournament. (Photo courtesy of WIU Athletic Communications)