Carlinville, Illinois 12/9/2023- The Westminster College women's basketball team traveled to Carlinville, Illinois to take on the Blackburn College Beavers in the final game before the holiday break. It would be a competitive first quarter with the Beavers taking a 15-14 lead. The Blue Jays offense would explode in the second quarter as Westminster would run away with it and win the game 80-53. The Blue Jays win their second straight game and improve to 4-5 on the season and move to 2-2 in the SLIAC. Blackburn falls to 1-6 on the season and 0-3 in the SLIAC. 

The Blue Jays jumped out to a 7-3 lead early in the first quarter. The Beavers would battle back to tie the game at 9-9 with 2:42 left in the quarter and would take the lead after a pair of free throws made it 15-14 with 13 seconds left in the quarter. 

Starting the second quarter down one, Westminster wasted little time regaining the lead. The Blue Jays would explode for 23 points in the quarter and took a 37-26 lead at halftime. It would be much of the same in the second half with the Blue Jays outscoring the Beavers 23-10 in the third quarter and 20-17 in the fourth quarter. Westminster would win the game with a final score of 80-53. 

Annette Ramirez and Tristan Porter, who both scored 16 points in the game, led the Blue Jays. Ramirez had 3 assists, 3 rebounds and 3 steals. She would go 5-9 from the field and 6-7 from the free throw line. Porter also had 3 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals in the game. She would go 6-8 from the field and 4-5 from the free throw line. Avylina Powell-Qualo scored 10 points and had a team high 5 assists. 

Westminster will take a break over the holiday season and will be back in action on Wednesday, December 27th when they take on Framingham State in the first game of the D3hoops.com Classic in Las Vegas, Nevada.