EDWARDSVILLE, Ill.—The Bellarmine women's basketball team held off the Southern Indiana Screaming Eagles 66-59 on Thursday afternoon in a Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament quarterfinal game at the Vadalabene Center on the campus of Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville.
 
On paper it looks like a pretty big upset with Bellarmine being the No. 7 seed and USI holding the second seed, but the Knights swept the Screaming Eagles with comfortable margins in both of their regular season matchups.  Today, the Knights had to sweat it out a little more, as the game was close throughout.
 
Although it was a tight game, Bellarmine led most of the way and held the lead at the end of every quarter.  After taking a 32-27 cushion into halftime, the Knights came out and pushed the advantage to 10 early in the third period, but the Screaming Eagles closed the gap to just five again by the end of the period.
 
Southern Indiana carried that momentum in the fourth quarter and inched ahead 51-50 with just under eight minutes remaining.  However, the Knights never trailed by more than one the rest of the way, and when Mallory Schwartz swished a 3-pointer with just 1:11 on the clock, it gave Bellarmine a two-possession lead at 61-57.  The Knights then got a defensive stop on USI's ensuing possession and iced the game at the free throw line to make the final 66-59.
 
"We knew Southern wasn't going to go away even though we had a five-point lead at half," said Bellarmine Coach Chancellor Dugan. "I thought we executed very well.  We moved the ball and got good shots.  When we got that 10-point lead I thought, 'let's extend it,' but I knew it wasn't going to happen because they're just too good of a team.  It was a great battle."
 
Bellarmine's Breia Torrens led all scorers with 16 points, and she narrowly missed a double-double by tracking down a career-high nine rebounds.  Ally Mayhaus also turned in a great performance for the Knights with 10 points, nine rebounds and four blocked shots, two of which came during the crucial fourth quarter when USI was leading by one.
 
Hannah Haithcock paced the USI offense with 14 points while hauling in 12 rebounds.
 
After a shaky start, the Knights got hot and finished the first quarter shooting just under 50 percent, making six of 13 shots.  Bellarmine's shooting then slowly deteriorated and BU made just five of 16 fourth quarter shots to finish at 39 percent for the game.  The good news for the Knights is that they were getting open looks from beyond the arc and nailing them, finishing 9-for-19 on three-pointers.
On defense, the Knights uncharacteristically played a zone most of the game, but it was effective as the  Screaming Eagles shot just 31.9 percent including a 4-for-21 performance from beyond the arc.
 
The victory propels Bellarmine (18-10) into Saturday's semifinals where they'll face the winner of tomorrow's Indianapolis-Lewis game.  Bellarmine will play in the 1 p.m. ET (noon, CT) game on Saturday with the championship game scheduled for Sunday at 2 p.m./1 p.m. CT.
 
Southern Indiana (18-9) now must await the NCAA's decision to see if they get into the postseason tourney. The Screaming Eagles were ranked sixth in the last regional rankings with eight teams from the Midwest Region making the NCAA Tournament field.
 
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