CHICAGO - No. 16 and top-seeded Saint Xavier University led from wire-to-wire and moved into Saturday's championship game of the Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference women's basketball tournament with a convincing 95-52 victory over University of St. Francis Thursday evening at the Shannon Center.

Saint Xavier (23-6) scored the game's first nine points and USF never got closer than within a half-dozen points the rest of the way. The CCAC regular-season co-champions pulled away to a 53-26 lead at halftime and coasted the rest of the way.

USF (10-22), the No. 5 seed in the field and coming off a 52-48 upset win at fourth-seeded Indiana University South Bend on Tuesday night, lost to the Cougars for the third time in as many meetings this year and for the second time at the Shannon Center in the last nine days.

Junior guard Julie Schiffler (Nazareth Academy/La Grange Park, IL) led the Saints with 11 points.  Four other Saints all narrowly missed double figures as they finished with 9 points each.  That foursome included seniors Bianca King (Quincy University/Lansing, IL) and Tori Albrecht (Downers Grove North H.S./Downers Grove, IL) and juniors Michelle Karr (Providence Catholic H.S./Tinley Park, IL) and Brandi Pudik (Kankakee CC/Washington, IL).

Karr also led the Saints with 8 rebounds and Pudik topped the club with 5 assists.

The loss ended the Saints' season. It marked USF's first losing season since finishing 15-16 in the 2005-06 campaign.