The Lady Buffs traveled to Topeka, Kansas on March 9 to take on Washburn in the first round of the NCAA Division II Women’s Basketball Championship.

The Lady Buffs started the game out strong, pacing Washburn in the first four minutes of the contest, but WU shook off WTAMU with an 8-0 run to lead 12-4 with 12 minutes left in the half. The Lady Buffs made multiple comebacks in the first, but went to the locker room down by 14 with a score of 32-18.Coming back in for the second half, WU extended their leads to 22 points in the first three minutes before the Lady Buffs could get two on the board with successful free throws. Washburn would hold WT to only 12 points in the first 10 minutes of the half while scoring 20 points.

Washburn continued their run through the rest of the half, scoring 16 points while only allowing WT to score six points. Devin Griffin scored the last of the Lady Buffs’ points with a three-pointer 17 minutes into the second. As the buzzer sounded, WT was eliminated from the tournament by a score of 68-36.

Griffin and Ashley Leven led the Lady Buffs with eight points each. Griffin also led the team with seven rebounds, while Joni Unruh joined her on the leaderboard with seven rebounds as well as four steals.

“I was very proud of the girls this season and how far they came,” Head Coach Krista Gerlich said. “We really matured in many ways and when our back was against a wall, they fought extremely hard and won 10 games straight to get themselves back in the Regional Tournament. Although the last game didn’t go as we wanted it, the girls still fought until the end and did all they could to represent WT in a classy manner.”

The Lady Buffs ended the season with a record of 19-10 overall and a conference record of 16-4 with 11 wins at home.