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SALT LAKE CITY – The No. 3 Westminster College women's basketball team will begin its defense of the Frontier Conference Tournament title they won last season on Saturday when they host Montana Western at 7 p.m. MST in the Behnken Field House. The top-seeded Griffins earned a bye into the semi-finals while No. 4-seed Montana Western defeated fifth-seeded Great Falls (Mont.) on Mon. to advance to the semi-finals.

TICKET INFORMATION
Tickets for the Frontier Conference semi-finals will be available at the door on the night of the game. The cost, set by the conference, is $7 for adults and $5 for students/seniors. There will be no pass list and any season passes are not valid for tournament games, per conference rules.

FOLLOW THE ACTION
The game will be broadcast live on Griffins TV on the web and also be available on Comcast 6 in northern Utah. Mike Lageschulte handles the play-by-play with Lance Barton as an analyst. Live stats will also be available for Saturday's contest. Links for all of the live features are available by clicking here.

GRIFFIN NOTES
Westminster completed the regular season at 22-2 overall and they used a perfect 16-0 mark in league games to secure a sixth-straight regular season Frontier Conference title. They are the defending champions of the conference tournament after winning the school's first tournament title in 2013. The Griffins went 11-0 at home during the regular season and they have won 23-straight home games dating back to last season.

The Griffins enter the postseason averaging 70.54 points per game this season and they lead the Frontier Conference by shooting 46.7 percent from the field. They continue to lead the NAIA in 3-point shooting by connecting on 40.7 percent from beyond the arc while making an average of 7.62 threes per game to place 10th in the NAIA. Westminster distributes 16.42 assists per game – 11th in the NAIA – and they rank second with a 1.44 assist-to-turnover ratio.

The Griffins have been stellar at the defensive end all season as they hold the opposition to 53.83 points per game. They place second in the country in scoring defense which helps them rank 10th in scoring margin at 16.71 points per game.  Westminster leads the country by allowing the opposition just 29.21 rebounds per game and they force 15.96 turnovers per contest.

Alli Blake is the team's top scorer at 15 points per game and she is third in the NAIA by shooting 56 percent. Blake also leads the squad with 107 assists and her 4.46 assists per game average ranks 23rd in the country. Tia Pappas averages 11.29 points and ranks 19th in the NAIA at 2.5 steals per game. Shelby Ellsworth is scoring 11 points while leading the team by grabbing 5.71 rebounds per contest.

LOOKING AT THE FRONTIER TOURNAMENT
The quarterfinal round of games on Monday saw both home teams come away with victories. Along with Montana Western defeating Great Falls, third-seeded Montana State-Northern knocked off Carroll (Mont.), 58-47. MSU-Northern will play at second-seeded Lewis-Clark State (Idaho) in Saturday's other semi-final game. The conference title game is on Tuesday at the home of the highest remaining seed after the semi-final action.

GRIFFINS IN THE POSTSEASON
This marks the Griffins 15th-straight appearance in the Frontier Conference Tournament. They have a record of 11-13 in the event while winning the championship in 2013. Westminster has hosted a home game in all five seasons of the current format with a 9-4 mark in those contests. Last season, Westminster won its first-ever tournament title by defeating Carroll in the championship game.

Westminster has played Montana Western in two previous conference tournaments, winning both times. The teams met in a 2009 semi-final game in the Behnken Field House when the Griffins won 85-55. Westminster also eliminated UMW in the semi-finals last season, winning at home, 64-39.

SIX STRAIGHT TITLES
With a perfect 16-0 conference season, Westminster won its sixth-straight regular season Frontier Conference championship. Going back to the start of the 2008-09 season, Westminster has dominated the Frontier Conference to the tune of an 82-5 (.943) mark and they have only dropped more than one league game in a season one time. This was the second time the Griffins had gone undefeated in league games, matching the 14-0 mark during the 2008-09 campaign.

NATIONAL RANKING
Westminster received 234 points to hold at No. 3 in the 10th regular season edition of the NAIA Coaches' Top 25 Poll that was released on Tuesday. This is the seventh-straight week that the Griffins have been ranked No. 3 and matches the highest they have ever been ranked. The Griffins have now been ranked in the Top 25 for a school-record 34 consecutive polls dating back to Dec. 12, 2011. They have also spent the last 23 polls inside the top five, which is the longest active streak in the country.

BOMBS AWAY
Westminster continues its hot shooting from beyond the arc this season. The Griffins rank 10th in the NAIA by making 7.62 triples per contest and they lead the country by shooting 40.7 percent from beyond the arc. They have recorded at least five threes in all but three games this season with a season-high 12 threes on three separate occasions.

Westminster has two of the top three long range shooters in the NAIA in Alli Winters and Amy Krommenhoek. Winters makes 54.2 percent from beyond the arc to lead the nation with Krommenhoek connecting on 46.8 percent of her attempts to place third. They both average 2.17 makes from deep per game which places them 37th in the NAIA.

ON THE DEFENSIVE
Westminster is one of the top defensive teams in the NAIA and they place second in the nation by holding the opposition to 53.83 points per game. The Griffins have kept the opposition under 60 points on 17 occasions this season and 10 times held them under 50 points. During their current 15-game winning streak, Westminster is giving up just 49.7 points per game with only two teams reaching the 60-point plateau. The Griffins also take advantage of their defense by scoring 18.6 points off turnovers per game.

THE BLAKE SHOW
Senior Alli Blake has been doing a little bit of everything for the Griffins this season. She currently leads the team in scoring at 15 points per game to place fourth in the Frontier. Blake has been named the Frontier Conference Player of the Week four times this season, including the final two awards. She is third in the NAIA by shooting 56 percent from the floor and 23rd by handing out 4.46 assist per game.

NAIA TOURNAMENT SELECTION SHOW
The NAIA is excited to announce that the 32-team pairings in the The Division I Men's and Women's Basketball National Championships will be officially announced with a live and free video-stream selection show on March 12, with the women's segment at 6 p.m. MST and the men's at 7 p.m.  There will be commentary and analysis during the show. The video will appear on NAIA.org roughly five minutes prior to the start of the show.

LOOKING AHEAD
Should the Griffins defeat UMW on Saturday, they would place host to the Frontier Conference Tournament Championship Game on March 11. The title game will begin at 7 p.m. MST from the Behnken Field House.