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SALT LAKE CITY – The fifth-ranked Westminster College women's basketball team will begin play in the 2013 NAIA Division I Women's Basketball National Championship on Thursday when they face St. Catharine (Ky.) in a first round game. Tipoff from the Frankfort Convention Center in Frankfort, Ky. is slated for 10:30 a.m. MST.

Westminster is the No. 2 seed in the second quadrant of the 32-team bracket. They qualified for the tournament by winning the Frontier Conference Tournament and are making the team's seventh consecutive trip to the national tournament. St. Catharine is making its first-ever trip to the NAIA National Championship after earning one of the final at-large invitations to this year's field.

Tournament Coverage
The first 30 games of the NAIA National Championships will be streamed live online by NeuLion. The stream is available for $9.95 per day or you can purchase the entire tournament for $29.95. The NAIA will also provide live stats of all 31 games of the tournament. All of the information needed to follow the tournament can be found online by visiting: WestminsterGriffins.com/naiawbb.

Watch the Games in Shaw
The Westminster Athletics Department will be showing the games live in the Shaw Student Center again this season. Fans are encouraged to stop by and take in the games, starting on Thursday at 10:30 a.m. Make sure to follow the Griffins on Facebook and Twitter for the latest updates about which games are going to be available in Shaw.

Griffin Notebook
Westminster heads to Kentucky at 27-3 on the season and winners of both the Frontier Conference regular season and conference championships. They defeated Carroll (Mont.), 63-48, on March 4 to win the school's first conference tournament title. This is the fifth straight season the Griffins have won the Frontier's regular season crown.

The Griffins will head to the neutral site tournament having gone 2-0 in games played on a neutral court during the year. They defeated Eastern Oregon 60-59 on Nov. 23 and then knocked off San Diego Christian 60-40 on Dec. 28. Westminster is 15-2 in all games played away from the Behnken Field House this season.

Westminster is scoring 64.77 points per game to rank second in the Frontier Conference. They are first in the league in field goal percentage (43.9%), free throw percentage (73.1%) and place second in 3-point field goal percentage (34.2%). Westminster makes a Frontier-best 6.33 treys per game and ranks first in assists per game at 16.37 and assist-to-turnover ratio, 1.28, which is second in the NAIA.

On the defensive end, Westminster leads the country by allowing just 46.47 points per contest. Griffin opponents shoot just 34.1 percent from the field, seventh in the NAIA, and only 28.5 percent from beyond the arc. They are sixth in scoring margin (18.3), second in rebound defense (30.1), 31st in steals (10.0) and 16th in turnover margin (4.17).

Against the Opposition
Thursday's game will mark the first-ever meeting between Westminster and St. Catharine. The Griffins went 2-0 against first-time opponents during the season, picking up wins over Southern-New Orleans and Oklahoma Baptist.

Against the Field
Of the 32 teams that qualified for this year's tournament, Westminster played seven of them during this current campaign. The Griffins went 6-3 in those games including a perfect 3-0 against the teams in their quadrant in Westmont (Calif.), Xavier (La.) and Rogers State (Okla.).

Postseason History
By picking up two wins at the Frontier Conference Tournament, Westminster now has a 17-19 all-time record in postseason play. The Griffins have compiled a 6-6 mark in their six previous trip to the NAIA National Championships. They have won four straight first round games at the national tournament while making the team's longest run at the 2011 tournament when they reached the final eight.

Frontier Dominance
Westminster claimed a fifth-straight Frontier Conference championship by finishing the year at 14-1 in league play. Under coach Jarrard the past two year, the Griffins have posted a 27-2 league record and they had won 22 straight games at one point. During this five-year run of titles, Westminster has gone 66-5 (.930) and only once they dropped two games during the same season. They have now reached the Frontier Conference Tournament championship game in four of the past five years and won it this season for the first time.

Getting Defensive
The Griffins are having one of the best defensive seasons in school history. The currently lead the NAIA in scoring defense by allowing the opposition to just 46.47 points per game. Westminster has held 22 of their opponents to 50 points or less during the season and 11 times to 40 or less. They also sit seventh in field goal defense (34.1%) and second in rebound defense (30.1/game). The Griffins established a new school record for fewest points allowed by holding Montana Western to 28 in a win on Feb. 9.

Offense Coming Around
When we rolled the calendar into 2013, Westminster was eighth in the Frontier in scoring at 61.29 points per game. In the 16 games played in 2013 the Griffins are scoring 67.8 points per game and they currently sit second in the league in scoring at 64.77 points per game. They only scored more than 70 points one time in the first 16 games of the year before closing the year with eight games in with at least 80 points.

Six Straight Over 20
With their 83-45 win over Rocky Mountain (Mont.) on Jan. 31, Westminster reached the 20-win plateau for a sixth consecutive season. The first 20-win season in school history came during the 2006-07 season when they finished 22-12 and started this stretch of consecutive 20-win seasons. The Griffins set a school record with 28 wins during the 2010-11 season and also established the record with a .800 winning percentage. In the seven years prior to the 2006-07 campaign, Westminster had never won more than 16 games in a year.

Frontier Player of the Year
Senior Nicole Yazzie was recently named the Frontier Conference Player of the Year. Yazzie is the fourth Griffin in school history to win the conference's top individual award and the first since 2010. She currently leads the team in scoring at 13.2 points per game and she is 10th in the NAIA with an average of 5.03 assists per game. Yazzie has scored in double figures 23 times this season and she finished with 18 points and two assists in the Frontier Conference championship game.

Climbing the Charts
Yazzie continues to climb the charts in the Westminster career record book. She currently ranks in the top 10 in 12 statistical categories and is one of just six players to score 1,000 career points. Yazzie currently ranks fifth in school history with 1,673 points and her 275 career threes is most all-time. She is second all-time with 532 assists and third in steals with 205.

Tidbits on Tibbitts
Cydney Tibbitts is second on the team in scoring at 11.63 points per game. She is 13th in the Frontier in scoring and is shooting 43.8 percent from the field. The senior grabs a team-high 8.23 rebounds per game to rank fourth in the Frontier and her 5.8 defensive rebounds per game lead the conference. Tibbitts was named the Frontier Conference Defensive Player of the Year and was a first team all-conference selection.

Wells-come Addition
Kelsi Wells is third on the team in scoring at 9.8 points per game while shooting a team-best 54.3 percent from the floor. The junior makes 48.6 percent of her attempts from beyond the arc while also pulling down 4.4 rebounds per game. Wells averaged 10.3 points per game in Frontier Conference play and shot 57.8 percent from the field in the 15 contests. She was named Second team All-Frontier Conference after scoring in double figures 16 times during the season.

Tia-rrific
Tia Pappas has been a spark off the Griffin bench this season and was named the Frontier Conference Sixth Player of the Year. The sophomore scores 8.2 points in 23.1 minutes per game while shooting 46.3 percent from the floor. Pappas is third on the team with 159 rebounds and her 2.27 offensive rebounds per game rank eighth in the Frontier. She is second in the league and 35th in the NAIA at 2.33 steals per game and she is 30th nationally with 70 total steals.

1,000 For Eastman
Allie Eastman is averaging 8.1 points per game this season and her 12 points against Carroll in the conference title game moved her to 1,001 for her career. She is the seventh player in school history to score 1,00 points is a career. Eastman has reached double figures in 12 games this season and has been the team's leading scorer in a game three times. Eastman also ranks in the Westminster career top 10 in field goals made, 3-point field goals made, assists, steals and blocked shots.

Checking the Polls
Westminster received 245 points in this week's NAIA Coaches' Top 25 Poll to slip two to No. 5. That is down two spots from the school-record No. 3 ranking the team held in last week's poll. The Griffins have been ranked in the top five in every poll this season and are one of just five teams that have spent the whole year ranked in the top 10.

Looking Ahead
A Griffins win on Thursday would set-up a Friday's game between the winner of No. 3 seed Xavier and the sixth-seed Faulkner (Ala.). The game would tip at 10:30 a.m. MST with a trip to the final eight on the line.