Women's Basketball- Saints and Layton Top Wolves, 65-62

Big second half for SMU star leads Saints over WOU

(Monmouth, Oregon) - Saint Martin`s held off a late Western Oregon run, keeping the Wolves winless on the season during a 65-62 women`s basketball game at the Physical Education.

The win broke a five-game losing streak for Saint Martin`s, improving their record to 9-13 on the season and 5-9 in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference. Western Oregon dropped to 0-22 overall and 0-13 in the GNAC.

Beth Layton scored 24 points, 14 of them in the second half to key the visitors. Layton scored 12 of those points during a 15-4 run that broke a 30-30 tie and eventually put SMU up by 13 points. With WOU`s Leada Berkey on the bench with four fouls, things didn`t look good for WOU.

But Berkey re-entered the game and helped WOU go on a 11-4 run before fouling out. The Wolves trailed 58-52 when Berkey left, but back-to-back three-pointers by Ali Crumb kept the hosts alive, and a Kaila Hawley trey pulled them within one point (63-62) with 38 seconds left.

But Layton hit two free throws with 10 seconds left, and WOU could not get off a trey to tie before the horn sounded.

Layton had eight rebounds and four assists to go with his 24 points. Whitney Golub had 10 points for the Saints. Hawley led the Wolves with 17 points and Chelsea Pahl had 13. Both hit four treys in the game. Berkey and Crumb finished with 12 points for WOU, who hit 10 of 16 three-point attempts.

No team led by more than five points in the first half, as both teams struggled from the field. The Wolves shot just 28 percent from the field in the first half, but they hit five of ten three-point attempts to stay close. Kaila Hawley hit three of those and had nine points and seven rebounds at the break, but the Saints led 26-24.

Western Oregon will return to the road next week, traveling to Seattle Pacific (Thursday) and Northwest Nazarene (Saturday).