ST. LOUIS - The Westminster women's basketball team knows how to finish a game.
A day after erasing a 15-point deficit in the second half to beat Greenville in overtime, the Blue Jays came back from down 10 and dominated the fourth quarter Saturday to defeat the Webster Gorloks 80-73 in the St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Tournament championship game.
Westminster was in a good spot early in the third quarter, getting a 3-pointer from Abbie Reece to lead 40-36.
But Naomi Johnson answered with a long-range shot and Webster outscored Westminster 22-8 in the next six minutes of play.
Johnson added her second 3-pointer of the game for a 54-46 lead at the 3:47 mark and Hannah Cottrell made two free throws to push the lead to 58-48 with 2:03 left in the third.
Westminster entered the fourth quarter trailing 58-50, but took the lead for good on a Reese Arnold 3 with just less than eight minutes left.
Westminster kept Webster from scoring during a nine-minute stretch than spanned the third and fourth quarters.
Avylina Powel-Qualo capped a 19-0 run with a layup with about 5:30 left, putting Westminster ahead 67-58.
The Gorloks never got closer than six points, as Shelby Kurtz made a pair of 3s and Arnold made 6-of-6 at the free-throw line in the final minute to finish off her 26-point performance.
Reese led Westminster with 11 rebounds and six steals, Powel-Qualo had 15 points and eight rebounds, and Kurtz added 12 points and seven boards.
Madison Schaffer came close to a double-double with nine points and 10 rebounds.
Webster's Addison Beussink finished with 27 points and 13 points, both game highs.
Top-seeded Webster (11-2, 8-1 SLIAC) hadn't lost since a 71-66 defeat in the season-opener at Greenville.
Westminster (12-3, 7-2), the No. 2 seed, got 22 points and seven rebounds from Powel-Qualo on Friday in the semifinal victory against No. 3 seed Greenville.
Kurtz made 4-of-8 3-pointers and all nine of her free throws to score 21 points.
Westminster scored 12 straight points in the third quarter to get within 51-48 with four minutes on the clock.
Powel-Qualo made a layup in the final minute of the fourth quarter to make it 69-68 and tied it at 69 with a free throw with just six seconds on the clock.
The Blue Jays broke a tie at 78 with :46 left in overtime when Arnold made two free throws, giving them the lead for good.