ST. LOUIS, Mo. – Missouri S&T's women's basketball team led for much of the first half of Saturday's Great Lakes Valley Conference contest with Missouri-St. Louis, but the Tritons got rolling from the field in the second half and went on to hand the Lady Miners a 76-53 defeat at the Mark Twain Building.

The loss was the third straight for the Lady Miners, who fell to 8-14 overall and 3-11 in the GLVC, while the Tritons improved to 16-5 and 10-4 in the GLVC with their ninth straight win.

Largely due to the shooting of Maddie Raley (Haubstadt, Ind./Gibson Southern), who connected on six of her seven shots from the field in the half and had 15 points at the intermission, the Lady Miners were able to take and maintain the advantage throughout the first 20 minutes of play.  Raley's basket at the 3:20 mark gave S&T a four-point lead – the Lady Miners led by as many as five in the first half – and S&T took its last lead of the half at 29-26 a few moments later on a three-pointer by Janie Arand (Washington, Mo./St. Francis Borgia).

However, the Tritons, who shot only 33.3 percent in the first half, got the lead right before the half ended on a Sammie Sproul three-point basket to take a 30-29 lead to the locker room.   But when the second half began, the Tritons warmed up from the field while the Lady Miners were unable to get going on the offensive end.

Bria Pierce (Overland Park, Kan./Blue Valley North) scored for S&T just over a minute into the second half to tie the game at 31, but starting with a basket by Jordan Fletcher on UMSL's next trip down the floor, the Tritons rattled off 14 straight points until an Arand jumper in the lane ended that spurt.

S&T trailed by 14 near the end of the third quarter when Jordan Kabetske (Republic, Mo./Republic) threw in a shot from 35 feet away as the buzzer sounded.  But after a delay in excess of five minutes to determine if she got the shot away in time, the basket – which was initially waved off – the basket didn't count and dulled any potential momentum S&T could have gained from it.

The Lady Miners stayed within the 10-to-12 point mark during the early minutes of the fourth quarter and was within 10 following a Kabetske basket with just under six minutes remaining, but UMSL outscored S&T 17-4 over the remainder of the game.

Raley led the Lady Miners with 20 points and made four of S&T's six three-pointers in the contest, while Arand ended the day with 15 points.  The Lady Miners made just 36.5 percent of their shots in the game.

Fletcher had a game-high 28 points to lead the Tritons, who shot 63 percent in the second half to overcome their first half shooting struggles.

The Lady Miners will host Indianapolis Thursday at Billy Key Court in the first contest of a three-game homestand to close the home schedule.  Game time is at 5:30 p.m.