ST. LOUIS – The University of Missouri-St. Louis women's basketball team's upset bid of Great Lakes Valley Conference regular season champion Lewis came up short on Saturday as the Flyers held on for a 61-56 win at the Mark Twain Building.

Despite the loss and thanks to McKendree's 84-58 win over Indianapolis the Tritons clinched a bid to next weekend's GLVC Tournament at Hyland Arena on the campus of Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Mo. The Tritons will be the number eight seed and get a rematch with Lewis as it secured the number one seed after beating McKendree on Thursday evening.

UMSL (13-15, 11-11 GLVC) jumped out to an early 6-0 lead but the Flyers (20-8, 19-3 GLVC) outscored the Tritons 12-5 over the final 4:38 of the frame to hold a 12-11 lead after one quarter of action.

UMSL began the second quarter scoring the first seven points to match its largest lead of the game after two free throws from Mara Rieder at the 7:16 mark. Lewis got back-to-back jumpers from Grace Hilber to pull within two but a three-pointer from Morgan Ramthun gave the Tritons a five-point lead with 4:09 left in the half.

Lewis pulled to within two after another jumper from Hilber and a free throw by Kree Nunnally but another bucket from Ramthun gave UMSL a four-point lead with less than two minutes to play in the stanza.

The Flyers outscored the Tritons 6-2 over the final 94 seconds of the half to tie the game at 25 at the break.

Lewis got a three from Jenna Badali to start the third quarter but UMSL countered with an 8-2 run to take a three-point lead on a layup by Alex Wolff. That would be the Tritons final lead of the contest as the Flyers closed the quarter on a 16-8 run to take a 46-41 lead into the final frame.

Lewis stretched its lead to eight less than two minutes into the final quarter on a jumper from Lily Courier but UMSL wouldn't go away pulling to within 53-52 after a layup by Wollf with 4:21 left to play.

Taylor Gugliuzza put the Flyers ahead by four as she completed an old fashioned three-point play on the next possession.

Emerson Weller pulled the Tritons to within a basket after a hitting a 10-foot jumper from the wing.

UMSL got a stop and had a chance to tie the game but missed a layup and then turned it over.

Badali hit her second trey of the contest to give Lewis a five-point lead with less than two minutes remaining.

The Tritons made it a one possession game as Wolff hit two free with 39.3 seconds left but a jumper by Badali with 0:13 left sealed the win for the Flyers.

UMSL finished the contest shooting 38 percent (23-for-60) from the floor, was 2-of-8 from three and shot 80 percent at the charity stripe. Wolff led all scorers with a career-high 24 points while Weller finished with 10 points.

Lewis connected on 41 percent (24-for-58) of its attempts in the contest including 4-of-17 from three and shot 75 percent at the foul line. Badali led the Flyers with 19 points while Hilber and Gugliuzza had 12 points apiece.

UMSL and Lewis will meet for the third time this season on Thursday (March 7) at noon in the first contest of the GLVC Tournament.