ST. LOUIS – The University of Missouri-St. Louis women's basketball team tips-off its 2023-24 season this weekend traveling to Michigan for a pair of contests. The Tritons open their season this Friday taking on third ranked Grand Valley State at 1 p.m. (CST) and then face Davenport on Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m. (CST).
UMSL returns six players from last season's squad that went 9-17, 7-13 in the GLVC including three all-conference players in junior
Jalysa Stokes (first team) along with
Morgan Ramthun and
Amaya Blake who were named to GLVC's All-Freshman team.
Stokes led the Tritons and was second in the GLVC in scoring with 17.4 points per contest. Ramthun averaged 11.3 points and 6.9 rebounds per contest while Blake averaged 11 points per game and connected on 36 percent of her three-point attempts.
About Grand Valley – The Lakers went 31-3 last year including 17-1 in league play, won the GLIAC regular season and tournament titles and advanced to the Midwest Regional Championship game. They return three all-conference players and four more who played more than 15 minutes per contest last year. Ellie Droste (first-team), Rylie Bisballe (second-team and all-defensive team) and Hadley Miller (all-defensive team) all earned All-GLIAC honors last year.
Droste was second on the team in scoring, averaging 11.4 points per game, shooting 45.8 percent from the field. She also made 50 three-pointers and a team-high 89 free throws. Bisballe averaged 8.7 points, grabbed a team-high 6.8 rebounds per contest and blocked 22 shots despite missing the start of the year due to injury.
About Davenport – The Panthers host Maryville in its season opener on Friday and are coming off a season in which they went 7-21 including 1-17 in the GLIAC. Davenport returns eight players from last season's squad including second team All-GLIAC and All-Defensive team performer Lillee Gustafson. She averaged 14.1 points and 9.4 rebounds per game while blocking 33 shots and recording 28 steals.
Mary Liedel also returns after averaging 7.0 points, 3.3 rebounds and 1.3 assists per game last season. Alexa Kolnitys started all 28 games as a freshman for the Panthers and was second on the team with 68 assists.
Ellie Toney returns in the frontcourt and ranked second on the team averaging 9.0 points and 4.9 rebounds per contest.
