Women's Basketball SLIAC Tournament Preview

St. Louis, Mo. - Fontbonne University women's basketball has earned the fourth seed in the 2017 St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Women's Basketball Tournament. This is the first year since 2012 the Griffins have earned a post-season bid.

Eureka College won the SLIAC regular-season Championship for the first time in school history and will host the Griffins at 8 p.m. this Thursday, February 23rd. Greenville College earned the No. 2-seed and will play third-seeded Webster University at 6 p.m. in Eureka, Ill. Between games the SLIAC will announce All-Conference accolades for this year. The winner of each game will play for the Tournament Championship on Saturday, Feb. 25th at 1 p.m. at Eureka.

This season the Griffins have split against each opponent in the tournament. Fontbonne fell to Eureka on the road 61-57 but upended the Red Devils' 10-game conference win streak 67-62 in the Dunham Student Activity Center. Fontbonne defeated Greenville and Webster at home but fell victim to the long-time SLIAC contenders on the road.

Fontbonne head Coach Maureen Sias sent the SLIAC a quote on the excitement surrounding the tournament, saying, "It is very rewarding to be back in the tournament. The girls and all of the coaches set this as one of our goals at the beginning of the season and they have been working so hard to achieve it. I'm very excited and proud to see their hard work paying off."

Fontbonne won five games in a row to secure a spot in the tournament. The Griffins finished the regular season 13-12 with a 9-7 conference record. It's the most wins for Coach Sias and the most for Fontbonne since the 2011-12 season. The Griffins average 62.7 points per team.

Griffin Notebook

- Fontbonne holds the SLIAC record for most Tournament appearances. This is the Griffins' 18th SLIAC Tournament appearance and first since 2012.

- Kaitlynn Walker leads the team, averaging 12.6 points per game.

- Freshman Raven Venegas is the team's major presence down low, averaging 9.7 points per game, 47.1% accuracy in the field and 6.0 rebounds per game. She can also handle the ball and isn't afraid to shoot from outside the paint.

- Senior Emmie Haring holds the SLIAC record for career assists and has led NCAA Division III in total assists, currently 190 assists, since January 2, 2017. She averages 8.7 points per game, 7.6 assists per game, 4.2 rebounds per game and a team-high 86.7% accuracy in free throws.

If you can't make the game in person, live stats and video are available here.

FULL SLIAC PREVIEW

Tournament Tidbits

• This is the sixth consecutive trip to the SLIAC Tournament for Eureka but the first time they have hosted the tournament.
• Although they have made a conference record 18 trips to the SLIAC Tournament, this is Fontbonne's first trip since 2012.
• Greenville will be appearing in their third straight SLIAC Tournament, a program record.
• Webster will be making their first tournament trip since 2013.
• Eureka is just one of two current SLIAC schools to have never won a tournament title. Iowa Wesleyan, who has not been eligible for the tournament, is the other school.
• Fontbonne has the most SLIAC Tournament wins in conference history with 20, claiming three tournament titles (1998, 1999, 2010).
• Greenville picked up the program's only two wins in tournament history when they made their championship run last year.
• Webster's 19 wins are the program's most since they finished with 21 wins in the 2004-05 season.
• Did you know only one seed lower than the #2 seed as ever won the SLIAC Tournament? That was in 2011 when Webster won as a #3 seed. In fact 16 of 21 times the top seed has won with last year stopping a streak of four straight top seed victories.