SPRINGFIELD – Missouri State women's basketball's late rally came up short as the Lady Bears fell to 7-4 on the season with a 73-58 home loss to Arkansas (9-3) here on Saturday afternoon at Great Southern Bank Arena. It marked the first time MoState has lost consecutive home games since the 2018-19 season.
 
After an extremely cold shooting day from the field through the first three quarters, Missouri State found some momentum in the final period. After Arkansas scored the first four points of the frame to take its largest lead of the afternoon at 22 points with 8:31 left in the game, the Lady Bears showed some fight and chipped away at the large deficit. Freshman Maiesha Washington knocked down a couple of shots before Kaemyn Bekemeier and JaNyla Bush hit two of MoState's five triples in the period to cap a 10-0 run as MoState cut the Razorback lead to 12 points with 7:01 on the clock.
 
With the deficit at 14 a few minutes later, Bekemeier and Kendal Brueggen gave Missouri State one final push as Bekemeier hit a triple and a free throw before Brueggen got a jumper and a trey to fall to force an Arkansas timeout as the home squad made it an eight-point game. Unfortunately, that's as close as the Lady Bears would get as the Razorbacks completed the wire-to-wire victory.
 
It was an uncharacteristically cold shooting day for the Lady Bears from the jump in this one. Missouri State scored a season-low six points in the first quarter on 1-for-14 (.071) from the field. A 13-2 run by the Razorbacks over a six-minute span helped give the visitors the momentum early as MoState trailed 17-6 after one period.
 
The second period was more evenly matched as the Missouri State defense went to work, holding Arkansas to 4-for-12 (.333) from the field and to 0-for-5 from beyond the arc. The Lady Bears' shooting woes continued in the second as Arkansas held the one-point, 12-11, advantage in the quarter. Despite cutting the lead to nine points on multiple occasions in the frame, the Razorbacks led by 12 points, 29-17, at the intermission.
 
MoState's first-half total of 17 points was its worst scoring half so far this season as the Lady Bears went 5-for-30 from the field and 0-for-7 from three-point range. Defensively, Missouri State was also minus-11 on the boards in the first half. A positive on the defensive end of the floor for MoState was that the Lady Bears forced 11 Arkansas turnovers and held them to 1-for-9 from behind the arc to stay within striking distance at the break.
 
Out of the break, Arkansas extended its lead before the Lady Bears evened the quarter back up just under the halfway point of the stanza. That's when the trends of the first half showed back up as Missouri State was held without a field goal for the final 5:08, scoring just five points at the free throw line over the remainder of the third to trail 50-32 heading into the fourth.
 
Missouri State was led by Bekemeier with 18 points, followed in double figures by Faith Lee with 10 points. Brueggen pulled down a team-high seven boards in addition to her eight points. As a team, Missouri State finished the night shooting .293 (17-58) from the field, .316 (6-19) from three and .692 (18-26) from the charity stripe. This afternoon's game marked the first time MoState had surrendered 50 or more rebounds since Nov. 17, 2021 at Oklahoma State.
 
The Lady Bears are back at home next week as they welcome Gonzaga on Friday, Dec. 19. Tipoff against the Bulldogs is set for 6:30 p.m. and the game will stream on ESPN+.