Box Score (Rolla, Mo.) – The Missouri S&T Lady Miners allowed 21 offensive rebounds to the Missouri-St. Louis Tritons and that was the difference in the ballgame as the Tritons scored 18 second chance to just five for S&T in 80-67 loss on Saturday.

The game started out tightly contested with UMSL (12-5, 5-4 GLVC) holding a 16-15 lead through the first 10 minutes. The Lady Miners (6-11, 2-7 GLVC) opened the game making five of their first six shots while the Tritons knocked home six of their first 14 attempts.

Devonna Smith hit a jumper in the paint with 9:56 left in the half to start an 18-0 run over the next five minutes as UMSL built its largest lead of the game at 34-15. However, S&T responded with an 11-0 run of its own over the last five minutes to cut the Triton lead to just eight at the intermission. Mia Wesley (Philadelphia, Pa./John Bartram) and Kylie Cooper (Andover, Kan./Andover) combined to score nine in the run.

The Lady Miners made just four of their final 15 shots in the opening half, but still shot 43 percent (9-for-21), they were 2-of-6 from beyond the arc and 6-for-8 at the foul line. Wesley and Cooper led the way with eight and six points respectively. S&T turned it over 10 times in the first half resulting in 10 points for UMSL and was outrebounded 23-to-16.

The Tritons shot 38 percent (14-of-37) from the field in the frame, was 2-for-5 from three and 4-of-7 at the foul line. Hazaria Washington led all scorers with 10 points in the stanza.

The Lady Miners continued their run into the second half scoring the first 10 points of the frame to take their first lead since it was 11-9. Elsie Greenwood (Breckenridge, Mo./Penney High School) converted an old-fashioned three-point play to make it 36-34 just over three minutes into the second half.

The lead would be short lived though as Alexis Lawrence hit three straight three-pointers to put UMSL back in front by seven less than two minutes later.

S&T battled back to within 50-49 on layup by Karli Sample (St. Joseph, Mo./Benton) with 11:04 to play, but wouldn't get any closer than that the rest of the way as the Tritons countered with nine straight points to extend the lead back to double digits.

The Lady Miners cut it to 61-56 on a three-pointer by Toni Knar (Mundelein, Ill./Mundelein) with 6:23 to go, but were unable to keep pace with UMSL as it scored 13 of the next 15 points to build a 74-58 advantage with 2:33 to play.

S&T wouldn't get closer than 13 points the rest of the way.

S&T shot 54 percent from the field in the second half to finish the game 23-for-47 (49 percent) from the field. It was 5-of-12 (42 percent) from three and only 16-for-22 at the charity stripe. Senait McLeod (Miami, Fla./Coral Reef) led four Lady Miners in double figures with 15 points. Sample dropped home 12 while Cooper finished with a double-double registering 10 points and 10 rebounds. Knar added 10 points as well.

Lawrence led all scorers with 20 points while Washington added 16. Tierra Snow and Alyssa Like contributed 12 and 11 points respectively off the bench. The Tritons shot 43 percent (29-for-68) from the floor for the contest, were 7-of-12 from three but made only 63 percent of their free throw attempts (15-for-24). They finished with a 43-to-30 edge on the boards.

S&T hits the road for the start of a four-game road trip beginning next Thursday in Kirksville, Mo., against Truman State starting at 5:30 p.m.