ST. LOUIS, Mo. – This evening the Webster University women's basketball team was back on the court when they played host to the Fontbonne (Mo.) University Griffins for the SLIAC Women's Basketball Semifinals. The top seeded Gorloks defeated the fourth seeded Griffins by a final score of 79-59 to improve to 24-0 on the season and advance to the SLIAC Women's Basketball Final. With the loss, the Griffins end their season with a 12-14 overall record and a 7-7 mark in conference play.

Prior to the start of the game, the St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference presented the all-conference and superlative awards for the 2021-22 season. Addison Beussink was honored as the Player of the Year, the Defensive Player of the Year, First Team All-SLIAC, and to the SLIAC All-Defensive Team. Hannah Cottrell and Naomi Johnson were also named to the SLIAC All-Defensive Team while Cottrell was named Third Team All-SLIAC and Johnson was named Second Team All-SLIAC. In addition, Jordan Olufson was named the SLIAC Coach of the Year and Nysa Gilchrist was named to the SLIAC All-Sportsmanship Team.

Webster went 35-for-74 (47.3%) from the floor and 4-for-15 (26.7%) from behind the arc. They outrebounded the Griffins 41-37 and had 12 rebounds on the offensive end. They forced Fontbonne to turn the ball over 26 times in the game and turned those 26 turnovers into 17 points on the other end of the floor. Webster also dished out 22 assists.

Webster came out in the first quarter and scored on their first two possessions of the game to jump out to an early 4-0 lead. The Griffins cut the lead to one, but a 10-3 run from the Gorloks put them up 16-8 with just under three minutes to play in the frame. The Gorloks grew their lead to as many at nine, but a 5-0 run from the Griffins to end the quarter cut the Webster lead to 20-16 heading into the second. The Griffins scored the first basket of the second quarter, but a 22-2 run from Webster put them up 42-20 late in the half. The Griffins cut the lead down to 16 and Webster took a 42-26 lead into the locker room.

The Griffins came out in the second half of the game and cut the Gorloks lead down to seven in the first four minutes of the period. The Gorloks picked it up as the half progressed and answered with a 16-3 run to extend their lead back out to 20 before take a 64-42 lead into the final quarter. Webster pushed their lead out to 30 in the final period and cruised to their 24^th straight win to advance to the SLIAC Women's Basketball Tournament Final.

Addison Beussink led the way for the Gorloks as she finished with a team high 17 points to go along with seven rebounds. Bethany Lancaster also had a great game as she finished with 15 points off the bench. In addition, Hannah Cottrell added 11 points while Emily Wilson finished with a team high eight rebounds and five assists to round out the top performers for the Gorloks.

With the win tonight, the Gorloks will advance to the SLIAC Tournament Finals to take on the reigning SLIAC Tournament Champion, Westminster (Mo.) College in a rematch of last year's final. The game will take place on Saturday, February 26^th at 7 p.m. in Grant Gymnasium.