By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

EVANSVILLE, Indiana — Western Illinois spent the first three quarters of Friday’s Ohio Valley Conference tournament semifinal tormented by an opponent that had spent the last two days building confidence and momentum while knocking off higher-seeded teams.

The final 10 minutes, though, belonged to the fury of a team that already has one championship, and wants another.

The 74-66 win over Southeast Missouri State at the Ford Center was another fourth-quarter masterpiece for the top-seeded Leathernecks, who advanced to Saturday’s 3 p.m. championship game against second seed Lindenwood with the conference’s automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament going to the winner.

That prize is why Western Illinois forward Mia Nicastro, who has already made one NCAA trip when she was at Saint Louis, gathered the Leathernecks before the game for a message.

It takes a special team, Nicastro said, to win a championship.

“It’s one of the hardest things to do,” she said, “and we have the team to do it.”

The Leathernecks already have a part of the OVC regular-season title — they had to share it with Lindenwood after last Saturday’s 50-49 loss to the Lions at Western Hall. It was that game, though, that Western Illinois coach JD Gravina called “a road map” for this win.

The Leathernecks (25-5) trailed by 16 points starting the fourth quarter of that game, and rallied to have a shot to win it in the closing seconds, a baseline jumper by Nicastro that rolled off the rim.

Western Illinois was down by the same total in this game — 42-26 with 7:26 to play in the third quarter — and trailed 52-42 with 8:59 left before rallying.

The Leathernecks made their first seven shots of the fourth quarter — they finished 10 of 13 from the field in the quarter — on their way to a 35-point outburst over the final 10 minutes.

“It just feels kind of surreal,” said Western Illinois guard Addi Brownfield, who opened the fourth quarter with three 3-pointers in a span of 86 seconds that staggered SEMO and left Brownfield a little foggy about what happened. “You know, we’ve talked about it all season, starting in July  with our summer workouts, so to finally be at this point, it’s surreal. And I think we’re really excited that we got to this goal.”

The Leathernecks had not made a 3-pointer until Brownfield hit one from the right side 32 seconds into the fourth quarter.

“Don’t ask her about it — she said she blacked out,” Gravina said, smiling as he looked over at Brownfield, who was laughing at the comment.

Then came a second one from nearly the same spot, and then the third that came from the left side at the same angle.

“I just remember feeling that hot streak,” said Brownfield, who finished with 17 points. “Knowing that this was our chance, this was our time to go.”

The fourth-quarter storm was built with pieces from everyone — the Brownfield threes, three baskets inside from Mallory Shetley, who had a season-high 27 points, a running shot by Allie Meadows with 3:51 to play that tied the game, and a basket inside from Nicastro, one of the nation’s top scorers who went without a point in the first half and apologized to her teammates at halftime.

The final piece was contributed by SEMO’s Ainaya Williams, who picked up her fourth foul knocking Nicastro to the floor with 1:23 to play, then got her fifth foul when she was whistled for a technical foul.

Nicastro made all four free throws, then Shetley scored off the ensuing possession, and Western Illinois led 64-58 with less than a minute to play.

“That was clearly the swing in the game,” Gravina said. “Honestly, you hate to see that. I know that the SEMO coaching staff is going to be really upset about that, and I did not see the technical, but that was a swing. That’s part of basketball. Sometimes you catch those breaks, but we had to take advantage. Mia hits all four free throws. Mal gets a bucket, so instead of maybe a two-point swing that’s a six-point swing.”

The tournament bracket is designed to give an advantage to the top two teams — they get a double-bye into the semifinals — but the Leathernecks were in the same position as SEMO, when they were the seventh seed and won two games to reach the semifinals.

It’s why Gravina dismissed a couple of congratulatory text messages on Thursday saying Western Illinois would be facing the eighth seed.

Gravina and the Leathernecks expected an opening flurry by the Redhawks (14-18), who were not just carrying the two wins in this tournament, but four consecutive to end the regular season.

“They’ve been playing amazing,” Shetley said. “They’re very much a momentum team, and they’ve been on a roll. They ended conference play with four wins, and came into the tournament got a couple more wins, so I knew they were going to come out tough tonight.”

“I worried about the first five minutes, because they had all the momentum,” Gravina said. “And I knew we would be kind of feeling everything out.”

It was a lot more than five minutes. SEMO led 35-22 at halftime as the Leathernecks shot 32.1% from the field.

“I didn’t realize it would be 20 minutes,” Gravina said.

Western Illinois didn’t have a 3-pointer, and Nicastro, who came into the game ranked fourth nationally in scoring at 24.6 points per game, was 0 of 5 from the field.

“I said that I have to be better, and that’s on me,” said Nicastro, who ended up posting a double-double of 16 points and 11 rebounds.

So Gravina called two plays to open the second half to get Nicastro good shots, and she scored both times.

The problem? The Redhawks hit their first three shots, including a 3-pointer from Raissa Nsabua, and suddenly they were up 42-26.

“Now you feel like they were answering us, which was a scary feeling,” Gravina said.

The Leathernecks had the last answers. The championship game awaits.

“This is a special team, and it’s a special group of girls who have all bought into one dream and into one goal,” Nicastro said. “And we have the pieces.

“We just need to finish the puzzle.”

Photo: Western Illinois’ Kaylen Reed is stopped by SEMO’s Zoey Rixter in the first half of Friday’s game. (Ohio Valley Conference)