TERRE HAUTE, Ind. – Ashli O'Neal may be short, but never underestimate her toughness. Even a cut on her chin and eventual stitches after the game didn't keep her from recording a fifth-consecutive double-figure performance.
 
O'Neal led all players with 16 points and was one of three players to record three steals for the Sycamores (8-15, 6-6 Missouri Valley). But while her double figures streak was extended, so was Drake's win streak as the Bulldogs ran away with an 84-51 win over Indiana State Sunday afternoon at the Hulman Center, extending their winning streak to 35 straight league games.
 
The Sycamore point guard didn't back down against a team that recently moved up to 14^th in the Mid-Major rankings. She didn't back down after a cut on her chin sent her to the athletic training room to stop the bleeding and never thought about not returning when stitches became an inevitability and halftime was spent with an ice pack to her chin.
 
"From being small and realizing that I have to be tough in order to be big," O'Neal explains of her toughness on the court.
 
But in the end, Drake was too much for the Sycamores to handle. Despite an eight-point halftime differential, the Bulldogs (18-7, 13-0) exploded out of the gate in the second half, outscoring Indiana State 29-12 in the third quarter.
 
Drake would go on a 22-4 run over a five-minute span late in the third quarter in which eight different Bulldogs scored. That all happened in a quarter where Drake shot 71.4 percent from the field. The Bulldogs would shoot 56.9 percent from the field throughout the whole game.
 
"You cannot simulate Drake in practice," Indiana State interim head coach Josh Keister said. "It doesn't matter if you have one week to prepare or one day, there is no way you can simulate for what they do. It is just how you are going to guard some of their actions - the handoffs and the cuts. Those kids play so well together."
 
While there was no victory for the Sycamores on Sunday – moral or otherwise – Indiana State still remains in the middle of a competitive conference with three weeks left to go in the regular season and a lot of sorting out to be done in the league standings.
 
"We're not going to let this game beat us up," Keister said. "We have been playing good basketball. We did so Friday night outside of five or six minutes."
 
And Indiana State will need O'Neal – the five-foot, five-inch guard nicknamed "Biggie" – to continue to exert her toughness on the court as she did Sunday.
 
"Biggie is a tough, tough kid," Keister said of O'Neal. "She is a tough player. We've seen it in the past month and we've seen it all season. We had a couple kids take it to the arms and to the face and we were cleaning up blood for a little bit there. She comes in, she'll probably need a couple stitches. She's just a tough kid and a tough competitor and she wants to be out there on the floor at all times. She's come a long way."
 
Drake, which was led by Sara Rhine matching O'Neal's 16 points, had five players in double figures and tallied 25 assists on 33 made field goals.
 
"That team is phenomenal," Keister said of Drake. "You don't do what they've done - winning 35 straight conference games - without being really good and really consistent."
 
Wendi Bibbins also scored in double figures Sunday as she finished with 13 points and eight rebounds. Ashley Taia and Tierra Webb joined O'Neal with three steals in the game as the Sycamores totaled 13 assists on 20 Drake turnovers.
 
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