INDIANAPOLIS – The No. 8 Marian women's basketball team punched its ticket to the Crossroads League Tournament Finals defeating Grace 68-49 in the semifinal round Friday night at John Grimes Court. The Knights move to 26-4 as they will play for the league championship Monday for the ninth straight season.

After trailing 4-0 early, Marian got their first bucket from Ella Collier with the move in the paint. Grace responded moments later and held the lead until the three-minute mark when the Knights got another score from Collier, sparking a 7-0 that saw Collier and Aliyah Evans takeover. With the lead at 15-10, the Lancers got a layup at the horn to trail Marian 17-13 after the first quarter.

Marian started finding their offensive groove in the second quarter as they jumped out with the 7-0 run behind an Evans and-one. Grace came back with five points to cut the deficit to 24-18, but once again it was Evans giving it right back with back-to-back layups to put her team up by 10. The Knights got a big spark from Evans as she scored nine points in the quarter to help her team take the 32-21 advantage into halftime.

Jayla Wehner drained the three-pointer to get the Knights going to start the second half. For the next few minutes both teams were going back and forth before Marian saw the 17-point lead with 4:15 left in the quarter behind the efforts of a Collier triple. The Lancers outscored Marian the remainder of the quarter to cut the lead down to 16 at 50-34 going into the final period of play.

Although trailing by 16 going into the fourth quarter, Grace did not give up. The Lancers put together a 6-2 spurt to get within 14 with 8:29 left to go. Collier answered with two jumpers before a foul on the Knights sent Grace to the line where they executed on a pair of free throws. Leading 58-44, Evans and Perryman gave their team some offensive juice with four quick points from Evans and a pair of freebies from Perryman to go ahead 20. The Knights seemed to take all the energy from Grace in final quarter to go on to win 68-49.

Marian will head to Indiana Wesleyan on Monday night at 7 PM for the Crossroads League Tournament Championship.  

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