CRESTVIEW HILLS, Ky. -- For the third time in the last four seasons, Washington & Jefferson advanced to the Presidents' Athletic Conference women's basketball championship game with an 88-66 win over Waynesburg.

With the win, W&J improves to 22-4 overall this season, matching the 2005-06 team for the fifth-most wins in program history. The 22-point victory was the largest win for the Presidents in the PAC Tournament since downing Thiel, 94-57, in the quarterfinals of the 2007-08 event.

The victory likely sets up a third meeting against defending national champion and the nation's No. 1 team, Thomas More, in action against fifth-seeded Saint Vincent, in the title game on Saturday, Feb. 27 at 4 p.m. That game will take place in the Connor Convocation Center on TMC's campus, with the winner clinching the league's automatic berth to the NCAA Division III Tournament. 

Beka Bellhy led the way, recording a career high for the second consecutive game with 36 points. She scored 24 of those points in the second half, almost matching the Yellow Jackets output (28) over the final 20 minutes. In the process, she became just the fifth women's basketball player at W&J to top 1,500 career points and enters Saturday's title game needing four points to move past Cindy Kelly (1,517) for fourth place and 23 points pass Shawndra McDonald (1,536) for third place in program history. The showing also allowed her to reach 491 points on the season, the fifth-most for a single campaign, and put her within nine points of becoming just the third President to score 500 points in a season.

W&J jumped out to a 12-point lead early thanks to a 12-0 run that made it 16-2 after just 3:50. Danni Medovich and Taylor Cortazzo both knocked down three-pointers to open the stretch, which closed with a Cortazzo fastbreak layup, two Beka Bellhy free throws and a jumper by Rachel Bellhy. Waynesburg, however, was able to cut the margin to five, 20-15, after one quarter.

The second period saw the Yellow Jackets knock down five three-pointers and outscore the Presidents 23-13 to take a 38-33 lead into intermission.

W&J scored the first four points of the second half to get the game within one, 38-37, and then used a 6-0 run after a WU bucket to take the lead for good at 41-40 and then 43-40 with 6:29 to go in the third. The frame saw Beka Bellhy score 14 points and Medovich add eight (including a pair of three-pointers) to hold a 62-49 lead after 30 minutes. Beka Bellhy shot 5-of-7 from the floor in the fourth quarter to notch 10 points and establish a new career high for the second-straight game (34 on Feb. 20 at Bethany).

Overall, the Presidents shot 46.8 percent (37-of-79) from the floor after a blistering 57.5 percent (23-of-40) in the second half. W&J assisted on 27 of its 37 buckets for the game.

Beka Bellhy added 13 rebounds to the fourth 30-point game of her career (third this month) to give her the eighth double-double of the season and 12th of her career. The senior is averaging 25.7 points per game in the month of February, including point totals of 36, 34, 30 and 29.

Medovich finished with 15 points and three assists, while Cortazzo was in double figures at 12 points, plus five helpers. Amirah Moore flirted with a triple-double for the second time this season, totaling eight points, 10 assists and nine rebounds. Rachel Bellhy ended the night with six points and eight boards.