HENRICO, Va. -- La Salle never trailed in Thursday evening's 2026 Betterment Atlantic 10 Women's Basketball Championship second round, defeating Saint Louis 59-51 and advancing to the quarterfinals for the first time since 2021.

Ashleigh Connor had a balanced game with 16 points, seven rebounds and eight assists against one turnover against her former team. Aryss Macktoon earned her seventh double-double and third consecutive with 15 points, while tying a career high with her 14 rebounds.

La Salle won the rebounding battle 49-42, grabbing 22 offensive rebounds.

"That was fun, it is nice to be in the quarterfinals," La Salle coach Mountain MacGillivray said. "Saint Louis is an extremely well-coached team, they make runs in this tournament every year. I was pleased that we were able to go out and handle business. I was pleased with the defensive performances of our post players. Aryss set the tone from the beginning of the game on the boards. We outrebounded them, that's not what we do best. You know if we outrebound our opponents that we're going to be in great shape, won the turnover battle, that's our recipe for success and it came to life tonight."

Saint Louis's Alyssa Koerkenmeier earned her 13th double-double and third in a row with her 18 points and 12 rebounds. Alexia Nelson added 12 points.

"Really incredible evening for us in terms of our fight," Saint Louis coach Rebecca Tillett explained. "We had a really good run there at the end, credit to La Salle for making a couple of back-to-back plays that held the lead for them. When you finish a season it's really to know if you did things the right way as a group, if you had the right people in the room. We went through a real stretch of adversity with a streak of losing and yet every woman in the locker room stayed connected and determined to try to figure it out together. We had no negativity, did not have people pulling away from each other, we just had people leaning in 'what can I do better to help one of my teammates?'"

La Salle's start to the game was an 8-2 run as Saint Louis went 3:32 without a field goal. A trio of Explorers combined to account for the baskets.

Even when the Billikens found a response, it was answered by Lauren Patnode's three-point field goal.

After this, Saint Louis found its way back into the contest and Nelson's buzzer-beating three-point shot put La Salle's lead at 15-12 after the opening period.

The Billikens got back to work in the second quarter with Zhykera Brown's triple tying the game, but La Salle closed the quarter on a 12-2 run. Saint Louis would go the final 4:36 without a basket.

A key to La Salle's halftime advantage was a 16-4 points in the paint advantage. While Koerkenmeier was able to make her presence felt with rebounds, she was 1-for-5 from the field. Her lone make was what broke the first quarter scoring run.

All told, La Salle led 31-21 at halftime.

Saint Louis had another strong start in the third quarter with Zya Nugent converting a basket and Mia Bergstrom converting a pair of three-point shots from the same location, bringing the Billikens to within four points.

La Salle's answer came from Joan Quinn who converted a three pointer of her own, during which she was fouled.

The Explorers defense once again stifled Saint Louis this time for an extended 6:43 period. La Salle used the time to extend to a 7-0 run, while the Billikens missed 11 consecutive field goals.

"I feel we have grown in every single area," opined Connor. "Having that year under our belts, we went through a lot of adversity and this year we've built and grown off that. We've closed out games we didn't close out last year and grown in the turnovers we're committing. Tonight, we had 12 and probably would have never committed 12 last year. Just by knowing as players we worked on ourselves in the offseason and inevitably, it made our team that much better this year."

Though Saint Louis was scoreless for an extended period of time, it held La Salle to a 23.5% shooting mark.

Jada Tiggett snapped the skid when Koerkenmeier passed her driving teammate the ball. Because of this Saint Louis found some rhythm before quarter's end, trailing 42-35.

The beginning of the fourth quarter interrupted into a brief three-point battle with Connor making a pair and Koerkenmeier converting an and-one play.

La Salle's third triple of the quarter came from Ivona Miljanic, helping the Explorers lead once again by double digits.

Behind Koerkenmeier, Saint Louis would battle back to within four points, getting a defensive stop. The Billikens would turn the ball over and with 22 seconds remaining in regulation had two fouls to give.

Macktoon would bury a pair of free throws, putting the game out of reach and securing La Salle winning all four quarters.

"A big part of our growth is putting all four quarters together," Macktoon beamed. "Last year we had some trouble playing together, but this year we have been playing 40 minutes hard and going at the other team."

La Salle now moves on to the final quarterfinal contest where it faces Richmond at 7:30 p.m. on CNBC.