SALT LAKE CITY – The Westminster College women’s basketball team begins the 2013-14 season with a pair of games this week. Westminster opens with a home game against University of Mary (N.D.) on Wednesday at 6 p.m. MDT in the Behnken Field House. The Griffins then travel to Provo to face Brigham Young in an exhibition game on Saturday at 3 p.m. MDT.
Wednesday’s night game with Mary will air live on Griffins TV and Comcast 6 in northern Utah. Mike Lageschulte will handle the play-by-play with Lance Barton providing analysis. BYU will provide an audio broadcast of the game on Saturday. Live stats will be available for both games. Links for all of the live features can be found in the calendar section of Westminster's athletic website.
The Griffins start the season with a No. 5 national ranking after going 29-4 and advancing to the quarterfinals of the NAIA National Championships last season. They return five players and two redshirt players from that squad. Westminster will look to six newcomers to help replace the 61.7 percent of the offense it lost from last season.
Westminster led the NAIA last season by holding the opposition to 46.91 points per game. The Griffins only allowed a team to score 60 points in a game on four occasions during the season, and they held 10 opponents to less than 40 points in a game. The opposition shot just 34.2 percent from the field and 28.5 percent from beyond the arc a season ago.
The Griffins finished the season ranked second in the Frontier Conference by scoring 64.06 points per game and led the league by shooting 43.1 percent from the floor. They averaged 6.27 threes per game and were second in the country with a 1.26 assist-to-turnover ratio.
Kelsi Wells returns this season after averaging 9.8 points per game last season as a junior. She was third on the team in scoring while shooting 53.2 percent from the floor and 50 percent from beyond the arc. Tia Pappas is also back for her junior season after scoring 8.1 points per game last season. Pappas pulled down 5.3 rebounds per night and led the team and ranked 28th in the NAIA with 74 steals.
Griffin Women Host Mary and Travel to BYU
The Westminster College women's basketball team opens the 2013-14 season with a home game against University of Mary on Wednesday night at 6 p.m. in the Behnken Field House.