RICHMOND, VA – Second-seeded Saint Louis overcame a test from sixth-seeded Richmond winning a 59-58 overtime contest Friday night at the Siegel Center to advance to the Atlantic 10 Championship semifinals.

“I give credit where credit is due and Richmond had a great game plan, their 1-2-2 was really effective,” Saint Louis coach Lisa Stone said. “They’re a good team. They turned us over 24 times and it’s been quite some time since we’ve done that. I didn’t think we looked especially crisp today but it might have been the best thing for us, because it’s a wake-up call. We’ve got to be ready to go. No Saint Louis team has ever been to the championship game, no team has ever been to the NCAA Tournament, and we’d like to change that.”

This was the fifth overtime game in the 2021 Atlantic 10 Championships, surpassing 2010’s mark of four for the most in championship history.

Ciaja Harbison led Saint Louis, scoring 17 points, while Brooke Flowers recorded her sixth double-double and fourth in the last five games with a 14-point, 10-rebound effort. Rachel Kent added 14 points. Myriama Smith Traore notched her fourth double-double of the season with 10 points and matched a season-high with 17 rebounds.

Saint Louis, which won both the rebounding and paint battles by 10 points, has now won eight consecutive games. 

Richmond saw Kate Klimkiewicz lead all scorers with 19 points and doubled her previous career high with eight steals. Grace Townsend and Alex Parson scored 12 and 11 points respectively.

“I think both coaches will sit here and talk about not doing this well or taking a play or a decision back,” Richmond coach Aaron Roussell said. “These were two very good basketball teams and I think our kids battled. We didn’t have a lot of things go well and obviously not our best shooting performance but in the end we had the lead in the fourth quarter after being down by 13. We almost won a game and shot 30 percent from the field.”

Richmond led by four points with 3:50 remaining in the first quarter, but Saint Louis countered with a 9-2 run through the end of the period, taking control. 

The quarter ended with Smith Traore blocking Richmond guard Claire Holt’s attempted buzzer beater. Smith Traore offered a fist pump as she led Saint Louis back to its bench.

“I think it was picking energy up from my teammates, we all had really big plays,” Smith Traore said. “My teammates were cheering for me and provided me with energy. I think that propelled my defense on that last play and our entire team on defense.”

A 9-0 Saint Louis run gave the Billikens their first double-digit advantage and that extended to 13 points with 44 seconds remaining. The advantage was 11 at halftime.

After Saint Louis scored 22 of its 33 first-half points in the paint, Richmond opted to adjust to a 1-2-2 zone and it forced the Billikens to commit 24 turnovers.

“Nothing else was working in that first half,” said Roussell. “They were killing us inside and Flowers going out you would think in some ways would help us but maybe that changed our game plan a little bit. For us there was some danger in going zone, but nothing else was working. We switched up our man and zone a couple of times, but the zone was working so we stayed with it.”

Though Richmond shot 1-for-7 from the field in the third quarter, it outscored Saint Louis by four points as the teams were separated by seven points.

At the start of the fourth quarter, Kent and Harbison sank shots to place Saint Louis in front by 12 points, but Richmond refused to fold.

Instead it went on a 13-0 run taking the lead with 46 seconds remaining in regulation.

“Coming into the game we knew exactly what we needed to do,” Richmond’s Alex Parson said. “In the fourth quarter we knew we weren’t going to let up, that March is all about fighting, surviving and advancing.”

Following a timeout, Saint Louis rallied with Harbison making a layup, ending a 3:50 scoreless streak and sending the game into overtime.

Despite having some offensive lulls, Stone opted not to change her team’s defensive mindset, which led to a couple of late stops.

“We stayed with what brought us here and I love that the kids said that,” said Stone. “That’s Billikens basketball, that’s how we play.”

In overtime, Flowers grabbed her own rebound and converted a layup placing Saint Louis in front by two. 

After Klimkiewicz split free throws, both teams got defensive stops. After a sequence in which Saint Louis made an outlet pass which was intercepted, Richmond had multiple looks to win the game, starting with an Emma Squires 3-point shot attempt that was off the mark. The follow up attempts didn't fall either.

Saint Louis now advances to take on Massachusetts in the Atlantic 10 Championship semifinals. The contest will be played Saturday at 4 p.m. These teams split two regular season contests, both played at Saint Louis’s Chaifetz Arena.

“This team does trust each other, they really do,” Stone said. “They know it, they want it, they believe in each other, they trust one another, they’re close. When you can lock in defensively for those stops at the end after we turned it over twice, we know that’s what got us here. That’s our identity. Now let’s see if we can advance to Sunday.”