ST. CHARLES, Mo. - The Indiana State women's basketball team put four scorers in double figures and forced Southern Illinois to shoot just 27.3% in the second half as the Sycamores advanced to the quarterfinals of the State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Tournament with an 83-68 victory over the Salukis.

Next up for the Sycamores will be the second-seeded Redbirds of Illinois State, who will take on Indiana State at 7:05 p.m. (ET) on Friday night inside The Family Arena. With the win, the Sycamores even their overall record at 15-15, while Salukis end the season at 2-28.

Indiana State shot out of the gates on Thursday, scoring 10 of the game's first 12 points over the opening 2:16, capping their run on a 3-pointer from senior Kelsie Cooley. Cooley scored the final six points of the run on a pair of treys, the first time in her career that the ISU senior forward has hit two 3-pointers in a single game.

The Sycamores took their largest lead of the first half at the 12:11 mark, when redshirt freshman Andrea Rademacher nailed a trey from the top of the key to give ISU a 10-point advantage, at 22-12.

The Salukis did not go away during the game, coming back to tie the score at 32-32 with 5:16, wrapping up their 10-3 run on a jumper by senior Katrina Swingler. ISU would never trail on Thursday, responding to SIU's run with a 6-0 spurt of their own to take a 38-32 lead with 3:55 remaining in the first half.

Indiana State took a 47-40 lead into the locker room, with Cooley, junior Shannon Thomas and sophomore Taylor Whitley all scoring 12 points in the first half. ISU shot 51.4% in the first half, knocking down 18 of their 35 shots, including a 5-for-11 effort from beyond the three-point arc. SIU sophomore Teri Oliver led all scorers with 15 points.

In the second half, the Sycamores never let the Salukis get closer than the seven-point halftime margin, as ISU came out of the locker room with a 6-0 run over the first four minutes of the half to push their lead to 53-40 on a pair of free-throws from junior Brittany Schoen.

ISU took their largest lead of the game with just 2:18 on the clock when Whitley converted an old-fashioned three-point play to give the Sycamores a 20-point lead, at 82-62.

For the game, Thomas led all with 22 points and 11 rebounds, her 10^th double-double of the season. Thomas also recorded a pair of blocks in the game, tying her for the Indiana State record with former Sycamore great Laura Rudolphi with 154 career blocks.

Whitley also tossed in 22 points, a career-high for the sophomore from Geneva, Ill., and also dished out a game-high eight assists. Cooley finished one rebound shy of her first career double-double, ending the night with 12 points and nine rebounds for the game. Rademacher was the fourth Sycamore in double figures, adding 10 points off the bench. Schoen also tied a career-high with six assists in the opening round of the tournament.

As a team, ISU shot 46.3% (31-for-67) for the game, while limiting SIU to a 9-for-33 effort in the second half of the contest (27.3%). The Sycamores also did a good job of limiting Oliver for SIU, who went 1-for-10 from the field in second half.