The Missouri Southern and Pitt State women’s basketball teams would meet up at the MIAA Tournament in Kansas City Friday night for a highly anticipated third matchup between the two teams.

Pitt State would earn victories in the first two games, but MSSU would get over the hump this time and defeat the Gorillas 75-61 sending them to the MIAA semifinals.

Lacy Stokes led the Lions with 19 points, while Kaitlin Hunnicutt showed up in a big way for MSSU knocking down four three-pointers and totaling 16 points.

Pitt State’s Karenna Gerber led all scorers in the game with 23 points and put on a double-double performance with 11 rebounds.

MSSU will face top-seeded Nebraska Kearney in the semifinals Saturday. The game is set to begin at 6 p.m. The Lions would speak on their win against the Gorillas.

Ronnie Ressel said, “That was a tremendous ball game. Give credit to Pitt, they’ve had a great year. They’re so good offensively and I thought today our defense was really really good. To hold them to 35% shooting, which they’ve been shooting in the mid 40s, was really tremendous of our kids as far as defense goes.”

Kaitlin Hunnicutt said, “I know I kind of had a little chip on my shoulder. I haven’t played good against Pitt State, either game we played them in regular season. They’re our rival. So, I just wanted to come out and put my best foot forward for the team because in the end, that’s all that matters is the win and I just wanted to be my best for the team.”

Lacy Stokes said, “I feel like everyone was really involved in the first half offensively, so to see us all hit some shots and give ourselves confidence cause we knew we needed to punch first and we needed to keep them down once we punched and not let them come back, so we just stayed aggressive offensively. I think everyone did.”