The Blackburn College Women’s Basketball team started their St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference play in St. Louis Wednesday night at Fontbonne University. The Griffins of Fontbonne defeated the Beavers of Blackburn 81-62.

The game started with Fontbonne on a 11-2 run and the Griffins never looked back. Both teams struggled taking care of the ball which made it difficult to mount any kind of comeback. Blackburn had 24 turnovers on the game and Fontbonne was just behind that mark with 22. Blackburn ended the first have down by 14 points (38-24).

The second half started with another big run by Fontbonne. The Griffins came out full of energy as they sparked a 14-2 run. Blackburn battled back but couldn’t cut the deficit to less than 19 points. The final score was 81-62 with Fontbonne University on top. Major factors in the game seemed to be turnovers and rebounds. Blackburn had 24 turnovers and was outrebounded 61 to 46. Another thing that may have been a small factor in the game is Blackburn’s Ciara Morgan, who has been the St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference player of the week for the past two weeks consecutively, did not play.

Blackburn scoring was lead by Erin Bell with 19 points. Bell also added twelve rebounds to the stat line. Other key players for Blackburn were Briana Rae and Shelby Smith. Rae put up twelve points and eight rebounds and Smith added ten points and eight rebounds. Fontbonne was lead by Chelsey Freymuth (twelve points and six rebounds), Emily Haring (eleven points and five assists), and Erika Kuhn (ten points and six rebounds).

With this loss Blackburn College’s Women’s Basketball has an overall record of 1-5 and a conference record of 0-1. The next game is on Saturday, December 7 at Greenville College. Tip-off is scheduled for 1 PM.