For the second consecutive season, the Saint Louis University women’s basketball team has made history.
In 2023, the Billikens won the Atlantic 10 Conference Tournament championship and earned the program’s first ever berth in the NCAA Tournament.
Once again, the Billikens have come up big in the postseason as they will be playing for the championship of the WNIT for the first time ever this weekend. SLU defeated host Vermont 57-54 on Thursday night in the WNIT semifinals in Burlington.
Saint Louis (21-18) will play Minnesota from the Big Ten Conference in the championship game on Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m. at the First Community Arena on the campus of SIUE. The game will be televised on CBS-TV.
In winning their first five games of the tournament, the Billikens have been an impressive 4-0 on the road. They have won games at Central Arkansas, Purdue-Fort Wayne, Wisconsin and Vermont. SLU’s lone home victory in the tournament came against Northern Iowa last week at Chaifetz Arena.
Senior forward Peyton Kennedy came up with another tremendous performance in the victory over Vermont. Kennedy scored a game-high 23 points to lead the way. She is averaging 23 points during the Billikens’ impressive postseason run. The 5’11” Kennedy is averaging 16.9 points to lead the Bills along with 5.3 rebounds a game.
Senior guard Kyla McMakin is currently averaging 16.6 points. The 5’11” McMakin has scored more than 2,500 points in her career. She has scored at least 1,000 points at Saint Louis and at Longwood, her previous school.
Sophomore forward Brooklyn Gray is averaging 10.8 points a game. The crafty 5’11” Gray scored 13 points in the victory over Vermont. Guard Julia Martinez is averaging 7.6 points and 6.1 rebounds with a team-high 214 assists and 96 steals. Junior guard Kennedy Calhoun is a defensive stalwart who also averages six points a game while junior forward Tierra Simon leads the team in rebounding at 6.9 boards a game.
