Box Score (St. Louis, Mo.) – They say the measure of any good team is its ability to win when it doesn't play its best. That was certainly the case on Thursday as the Missouri S&T Lady Miners played one of its uglier games of the season, but were able to pull out a 58-51 win over the Missouri-St. Louis Tritons at the Mart Twain Building.

S&T (11-5, 7-1 GLVC) got just five points from its leading scorer Hailee Parks (Sullivan, Mo./Sullivan), all at the foul line, but had several others step down the stretch to pick her up and help the team win its third straight.

The Lady Miners had a three-point lead at the half and extended it to five on a basket by Katelyn Heil (Dexter, Mo./Dexter) to start the second stanza. UMSL (9-7, 4-4 GLVC) answered with six straight points to take its first lead since early in the contest on a jumper by Angela Johnson at the 17:17 mark.
From there it would be a back-and-forth affair the rest of the way as neither side built a lead bigger than three points. S&T got a little breathing room building five-point lead with less than three minutes on a pair of free throws by Heil. Deaven Omohundro answered with a three to pull the Tritons within two with 2:29 to play.

On the next possession Heil drove the baseline and found an open Kylie Cooper (Andover, Kan./Andover) who knocked home a 10-foot jumper to push the lead back to four at 51-47. Devonna Smith countered on the next trip down hitting two free throws to cut the lead to 51-49 with 1:25 to play. Parks extended the lead back to four with two free throws of her own with 1:06 left.

Kelly McGovern drove the length of the court and hit a layup with 0:52 left to cut the margin back to two. After a timeout by S&T, Kyesha Hall (Dodson, La./) hit a jumper as the shot clock was winding down to make it 55-51 with 0:25 left. McGovern tried to answer again but her shot was off the mark and the Tritons got the rebound. Smith missed the layup off the inbounds pass and Hall corralled the rebound.

She got the ball to Taylor Jensen (Farmington, Mo./Farmington) who was fouled with 0:11 left. Jensen hit 1 of 2 at the line to make it a five-point game and then UMSL turned it over and Heil sealed the game at the line hitting two free throws.

The first half was a struggle for both teams on the offensive end as the Lady Miners shot just 35.5 percent (11 for 31) from the field while the Tritons made only 7 of their 28 shot attempts. S&T missed its first seven shots of the contest before making six of the next seven attempts to turn a 4-1 deficit into a 13-6 lead.

The Lady Miners led by as many as eight in the frame at 19-11 on a basket by Leigh-Ann Kesper (Edwardsville, Ill./Edwardsville) with 4:38 left in the half. UMSL though closed the half on a 10-5 run to cut the S&T advantage to 24-21. The Lady Miners played a majority of the first half without Cooper and Parks who each picked up two early fouls.

Hall led the way for S&T with 11 points while Heil added nine and Senait McLeod (Miami, Fla./Coral Reef) dropped home seven. The Lady Miners shot just 39.6 percent (19 for 48) from the field, but went 19 of 28 at the charity stripe (68 percent). 17 of those free throws came in the second half.

Smith and Johnson led the way for UMSL with 14 and 12 points respectively. The Tritons shot just 34 percent (18 for 53), but made 44 percent of their shots in the second half. UMSL outrebounded S&T 39 to 35.

The Lady Miners will be back on the road on Saturday traveling to Maryville University to take on the Saints at 1 p.m.