LEWISTON, Idaho – The No. 23 Lewis-Clark State women's basketball team pulled off an upset in the opening round of the 2019 NAIA Division I Women's Basketball Championship on Tuesday. In a rematch of the 2017 opening round, the Warriors took down the No. 9 William Penn Statesmen 64-58.
With the win, the Warriors will face LSU Alexandria who upset No. 8 Westmont to earn their spot in the second round. The game will take place on Friday at 9:45 a.m. PDT. A watch party will be held at Zany's beginning at 9 a.m. and free breakfast will be served.
FULL BRACKET (PDF)
No. 23 The Warriors – 21-11
The Warrior women upset the Statesmen to begin their journey in this year's tournament, taking down a team that came into the tournament on a 13-game winning streak and a 30-2 record. William Penn is now 0-3 in their National Championship appearances with all three losses coming to Frontier Conference teams.
Hailey Turner led the Warriors with 13 points and
Abbie Johnson followed closely behind with 12.
Peyton Souvenir dished out a tournament-leading nine assists in the contest and
Jossilyn Blackman grabbed nine rebounds.
LC forced 16 turnovers and scored 18 points off the giveaways. As a team, the Warriors hit nine 3-pointers and were 15-for-17 from the free throw line. They held William Penn to a 27 shooting percentage from 3-point range (8-for-30) and tallied six steals.
LSU Alexandra Generals – 22-7
LSUA earned their first trip to the NAIA DI Women's Basketball National Championship Tournament with an at-large berth after receiving votes in the final NAIA Top 25 Poll of the season. They were tabbed a seven seed and faced second-seeded Westmont.
The Generals pulled off the first upset of the day with their 70-59 win over No. 8 Westmont. Freshman Aja Law led LSUA with a career-high 27 points in the contest. They shot 52 percent from the floor and 43 percent from 3-point range.
Danyale Bayonne leads the team in points with an average of 19.84 per game while Law leads the defense with 7.93 rebounds per game. Brittany Hall led the Red River Athletic Conference and is second in NAIA DI with 6.55 assists per game and is third in the nation in total assists with 190.
As a team, the Generals are fourth in the nation in assists per game (18.14) and fifth in 3-point field goal percentage defense (.254). They are in the top 10 in total assists (526) and scoring offense per game (78.01).
The Details
The winner of the matchup will move on to face the winner of the contest between No. 1 Freed-Hardeman and No. 17 Lindsey Wilson on Saturday at 1 p.m.
Warrior Athletics and Happy Day will host a Warrior Watch Party at Zany's in the ZPUB Loft on Friday starting at 9 a.m. Happy Day and Zany's will provide a free pancake and sausage breakfast. The game will also be streamed on campus in the SUB.
KOZE radio will be broadcasting the games from Billings, Mont. The link can be found on the women's basketball schedule.
Fans can stream the tournament online through the NAIA Network. Single-day passes can be purchased for $9.95, while an all-tournament package is available for $34.95.
The NAIA also released the Experience NAIA Championship App this season. Live stats, team info, etc., will be included along with push notifications of game scores and tournament updates.
The live stats link can also be found on the women's basketball schedule.
