ST. LOUIS – Missouri Baptist Women's Basketball delivered one of its best defensive performances of the year on Tuesday downing St. Louis College of Pharmacy at home, 64-40. In fact, the Spartans were one basket shy of a season best in scoring defense.
 
"It was a heck of a defensive effort this evening," said head coach Samuel Pearson following the win. "We tried to key in on Grace Beyer, who is one incredible freshman. Our defensive goal is always to make teams take the lowest percentage shot and contest it. I thought we did that well and rebounded it pretty well tonight."
 
The Spartans limited the Eutectics' AMC Freshman of the Year candidate Grace Beyer to 11 points on 2-of-9 shooting, although she wasn't the only one that they slowed down. STLCOP just barely cracked 20 percent shooting on the night and went 6-of-31 from 3-point range (.194).
 
Neither team gained any separation in the opening quarter. Despite St. Louis College of Pharmacy shooting poorly (.176), the Spartans only led by one at the first break.
 
The final two minutes of the half is when MoBap made its move. In addition to the Spartans' stout defense that yielded just six points in the quarter, MBU went on a 10-0 run to close out the half capped by a buzzer-beating three from freshman Taylor Norris. The Spartans outscored STLCOP 17-6 in the second and led 30-18 at halftime.
 
Sticking to its gameplan, MBU's defense created problems for St. Louis College of Pharmacy holding the visitors to an abysmal 16 percent from the field. Furthermore, the Eutectics didn't record a two-point field goal until four minutes into the second half.
 
Maintaining a double-digit lead throughout the second half, MBU didn't let off the gas and extended the margin to as much as 27 in the fourth quarter. Defensively, the Spartans continued to put pressure on STLCOP until the final horn coming up with six steals and eight turnovers in the fourth.
 
While only logging two points on the night, Lauren Ebert was able to fill up the final stat sheet in other ways, which didn't go unnoticed. The freshman out of Francis Howell Central HS crashed the boards extremely well tying center Alexis Allstun for a game-high 9 rebounds (3 O, 6 D) and dished out a pair of assists.
 
Offensively, the Spartans had three players score in double figures. Sophomore Tionne Taylor led the way with a game-high 17 points to go along with 4 steals, 3 rebounds and 2 assists. Taylor Norris added 16 points and 6 rebounds to the fold, coming up just one carom shy of a career high. While Alexis Allstun saw her double-double streak of 4 games come to an end, the final line for the freshman was nothing to scoff at. Allstun finished with 15 points on 6-of-7 shooting, 9 rebounds (4 O, 5 D) and three blocks.
 
Next on the docket for the Spartans is one final regular-season road trip, which includes stops at Williams Baptist University (17-8, 13-7 AMC) and No. 12 Freed-Hardeman University (20-6, 17-3 AMC).