MISSOULA, Mont.—The Utah Valley women's basketball team fell to St. Louis 68-66 at the Lady Griz Holiday Classic hosted by Montana. Freshman Mariah Seals led the Wolverines with a career high 22 points and was named to the Holiday Classic All-Tournament team.
 
Seals also finished with five rebounds, five assists and two steals. Rhaiah Spooner-Knight finished with 17 points and Rebecca MaWhinney led on the boards with seven. Karlee Norris and Patrice Toston each finished with seven points.
 
"Offensively, this was one of our best nights, the girls are starting to understand what we are looking for," head coach Cathy Nixon said. "In terms of the looks we got, it would have been nice to hit a few more baskets. Mariah was terrific, both nights she was really good, and for a true freshman to lead our young team the way she does is just phenomenal. She was doing exactly what we wanted her to do on both ends of the court." 

After a jumper from Spooner-Knight, the Billikens ran out in the second half with a 14-2 spurt, lengthening their three point lead at the break, 27-24, to 41-28. Utah Valley chipped away at the deficit, highlighted by a huge three from Seals with just under ten minutes to play.
 
Seals hit another three with 3:06 remaining to close the gap to just eight points, 58-64.  The Billikens' Sadie Stipanovich hit two free throws and a jumper before Utah Valley's Deijah Blanks put up a jumper of her own to make it a six point game. Stipanovich hit another pair from the charity stripe securing Saint Louis' final 68 points. In the final minutes, Spooner-Knight hit a jumper and Norris added two more jump shots to close the score to 66-68. With two seconds remaining, MaWhinney missed a jumper and Norris recovered the rebound, but the Saint Louis defense held strong as the clock ran out.
 
Alongside Seals, Stipanovich was also named to the All-Tournament team and scored 28 points on the night.
 
Utah Valley shot 41.5 percent from the field on the night, after only shooting 23.1 percent the previous day against Montana. Seals lead all scorers from beyond the arc, shooting 3-for-8 of her 22 points.  Spooner-Knight was 7-for-12 on the night.
 
Utah Valley enters the longest break in their season, resting until Dec. 29, when they will host Omaha at the UCCU Center at 3 p.m. MT.