Las Vegas, NV 12/27/2023- The Westminster College women's basketball team traveled to Las Vegas, Nevada to compete in the 13th annual D3 Hoops.com Classic. The Blue Jays would play the first game of the 16-game classic against the Framingham State Rams out of Massachusetts. The Rams would defeat the Blue Jays 71-48 to remain undefeated on the season and improve to 11-0. The Blue Jays fell to 4-6 on the year.
Both teams showed some rust from the holiday break, with neither team scoring in the game's opening two minutes. Framingham would break the ice with 8:06 on the clock in the first quarter to take a 2-0 lead. They would go on a 9-0 run to end the quarter and had an 18-11 lead. The Blue Jays would struggle offensively, shooting 26% from the field in the first quarter.
That percentage would carry over into the second quarter as the Rams outscored the Blue Jays 17-12 and took a 35-23 lead into halftime.
Early in the second half, the Blue Jays would battle back and continued to stick around. They would chip into the Framingham State lead and cut it eight points, 39-31, with 6:24 remaining in the third quarter. The Blue Jays could not get over that 10-point margin and the Rams would begin to rain in three-pointers to go on and win the game 71-48.
Junior Annette Ramirez led the offense with 20 points, going 9-20 from the field and 2-2 from the free throw line. Caragan Lockard scored 14 points and grabbed 5 rebounds. The Blue Jays, normally a good shooting team, would go 18-62 from the field, shooting 29%, and went a very uncharacteristic 2-17 from behind the arc. Westminster would turn the ball over 18 times, leading to 21 points off of turnovers for the Rams.
The Blue Jays have an off day in Vegas tomorrow and will watch the six games on the slate that feature five nationally ranked teams and five more undefeated teams from around Division 3 men's and women's basketball. Westminster will play again on Friday, December 29th when they take on Occidental College from Los Angeles, California at noon central time, 10 am out in Las Vegas.
