ST. CHARLES, Missouri -- The No. 1 Lewis University women’s basketball team flew past the No. 8 seed University of Indianapolis to secure a 69-63 overtime victory in the quarterfinal round of the GLVC Basketball Championship Tournament Thursday night at Family Arena in St. Charles, Missouri.
Its hard work and persistence allowed Lewis to secure a ticket to the semifinals on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. CT.
The game was a hard-fought battle between Lewis and Indianapolis. The lead changed 17 times and the score was tied on nine separate occasions throughout the game.
“If you look at our team and the last 10 games, it hasn’t been easy,” Flyers head coach and GLVC Coach of the Year Kristen Gillespie said. “We grind it out, and we have been through almost every situation so our kids don’t panic.”
The Flyers held the lead the entire first half until the Hound’s momentum increased going into the second half.
Hound’s senior guard Princess German helped her team take the lead by eight points with 8:27 remaining in the third quarter. She never stopped driving to the basket after that.
The GLVC’s leading scorer collected a game-high 29 points as she played the entire 45 minutes of the last game of her senior season. It was an outstanding performance that did not go unnoticed by the Greyhounds' head coach Constantin Popa.
“I wish we could have done more for her, but unfortunately, we came up short a little bit,” Popa said.
German carried her team as long as she could until the Flyers’ senior forward and GLVC Player of the Year Mariyah Brawner-Henley gained a scoring momentum of her own.
Brawner-Henley came into the game with a slow start. She scored only two points going into the second half, but then she finally found the net. She ended the game with a team-high 27 points.
“When you have Mariyah Brawner-Henley on your team, you just feel really confident,” said Gillespie. “I felt good as a coach like ‘hey, I have this kid on my team. I am pretty lucky.’”
Brawner-Henley was not the only Flyer to land the team safely to a semifinal appearance. Freshman forward Jessica Kelliher ended the game with 18 points and seven defensive rebounds, while redshirt-sophomore guard Tiana Karopulos added 11 points and 10 rebounds to help lead their team to success.
The luck of the Flyers propelled their team to a well-earned victory as well as another chance to continue playing this season.
“We just love being together and having another chance to come to practice tomorrow, try to get a little better and play a great Quincy team and see how we do,” said Gillespie.
The Flyers will face No. 4 seed Quincy University, which defeated No. 5 Truman State University 62-49 in a previous quarterfinal.