ST. LOUIS – The University of Missouri-St. Louis women's basketball team started fast jumping out to a nine-point lead but couldn't maintain it as it fell to Lewis 67-55 on Saturday afternoon at the Mark Twain Building. The Tritons drop to 2-6, 1-3 GLVC while the Flyers improve to 5-5, 4-1 GLVC.
UMSL began the game hitting five of its first eight shots and led 11-2 after a three-pointer from
Jalysa Stokes 4:12 into the contest. Lewis cut the deficit to five as Jenna Badali hit a pair of three's before Stokes answered with another three to push the lead back to eight with 4:01 remaining in the frame.
The Flyers got buckets from Taylor Gugliuzaa and Kathryn Schmidt to cut the lead to four with 1:05 left in the stanza but the Tritons countered with a layup by
Morgan Ramthun and a jumper from Stokes to take a 20-12 lead into the second quarter.
Lewis opened the second stanza on an 8-3 run to cut UMSL's lead to three with Grace Hilber hitting back-to-back three's. The Tritons pushed their lead back to six with under three minutes to go in the half on a layup by
Shae Dillavou. The Flyers went on a 12-2 run over the final 2:33 of the half as they hit their final five shots including a pair of three's from Hilber to head into the break with a 33-29 lead.
UMSL got a three from Ramthun to begin the second half to cut Lewis' lead to one but the Flyers ran off 12 of the next 14 points to build an 11-point lead on a layup from Schmidt. The Tritons got back-to-back baskets from Ramthun and
Amaya Blake to get within six halfway through the quarter. Lewis scored five of the final eight points of the quarter to take an eight-point lead into the final 10 minutes.
The two teams traded baskets over the first four minutes of the fourth quarter but the Flyers still led by eight after a pair of Gugliuzza free throws. Those free throws sparked an 11-0 run for Lewis which saw it take its biggest lead of the game at 65-48 with 3:45 to go.
UMSL wouldn't get closer than 12 points the rest of the way.
The Tritons finished the game shooting 38 percent (22-for-58) from the field, were 5-of-17 from three and shot 67 percent at the foul line. Ramthun led UMSL in scoring with a career-high 18 points while Blake added a career-high 17 and Stokes finished with 14.
The Flyers shot 52 percent (25-for-48) in the contest including 9-of-22 from three and 62 percent at the foul line. Hilber led all scorers with 23 points and hit five of the team's nine three's in the contest. She was joined in double figures by Schmidt with 15 and Gugliuzza added 10 more.
UMSL wraps up the first half of its schedule on Monday (Dec. 19) as it travels to Hammond, Ind., to take on Purdue Northwest at 1 p.m.
