MARION, Ind. -- For the third consecutive season Luckey Arena will host the Crossroads League Women's Basketball Championship.

No. 1-seed Indiana Wesleyan earned the right to defend their back-to-back tournament championships with a 64-53 victory over No. 5-seed Huntington (Ind.) University in the Crossroads League Tournament Semifinals. The win was the third this season over Huntington.

"This was a hard game," said Indiana Wesleyan head coach Steve Brooks. "And that is what you expect the third time around and in the conference semifinals."

Indiana Wesleyan (30-2) will host No. 2-seed University of Saint Francis (Ind.) in the league championship game at 7 p.m. on Monday. The two highly ranked teams split the regular season contests with both teams winning on their home court. IWU will enter the game ranked No. 1 in NAIA Division II while Saint Francis is No. 4.

To get to the title game, Indiana Wesleyan went to the post to beat Huntington. Senior forward Paige Smith and sophomore forward Katrina Blackmon combined for 41 points on 16-of-25 shooting. Smith led all players with 22 points while Blackmon tied her career-high with 19.

"They showed up to play and tonight it was really important that they did," Brooks said about Smith and Blackmon. "We knew we had a little bit of an advantage inside with our size and we were able to take advantage of that at times."

The Wildcats once again got off to a great start in building a 17-5 advantage. The Foresters did not make their first field goal until the game was nearly seven minutes old. The Wildcats built their largest lead of the half at 16 when a Blackmon layup put IWU ahead 25-9 and 2:26 left before half.

Indiana Wesleyan took a 27-14 advantage into the break. The stat of the half was Huntington hitting just 20.0-percent from the floor on 4-of-20 shooting.

Building the double digit lead would prove beneficial for the second half as Indiana Wesleyan had to play through quite a bit of foul trouble.

A majority of the second half was played with the Indiana Wesleyan lead fluctuating between eight and 13 points. Every time Huntington would draw to within single digits, Indiana Wesleyan answered to push the lead back to double digits.

Both teams went to the bench quite a bit due to foul issues in the second half. Indiana Wesleyan and Huntington combined to have four players with four fouls with eight minutes still remaining. The teams were called for 19 fouls apiece, including a combined 10 offensive fouls.

The closest Huntington (18-13) would get in the second half was 43-36 with 8:01 remaining after a short 5-0 spurt. IWU sophomore forward Teneil Krebs quickly answered with a 3-point basket, the first of the game for Indiana Wesleyan, to put the team back on top by 10 points.

"In the first half we played really strong defense," said Brooks. "I knew they would come out and make a run but I don't think they got it any closer than seven. We had a chance in there every time to answer their make and we did, something positive happened for us so that was big too."

The Wildcats shot 47.1-percent (24 of 51) from the floor and 73.7-percent (14 of 19) from the free throw line. The Foresters were limited to 36.4-percent (16 of 44) shooting but did hit 85.7-percent (18 of 21) from the foul line.

The league championship game is the 11th all-time -- and 10th in 12 years -- for Indiana Wesleyan since the inception of the tournament in 1994. IWU is 5-5 all-time in the game.

Indiana Wesleyan was the No. 1-seed in the tournament and clinched the first of two Crossroads League automatic bids to the NAIA National Tournament. Since IWU is in the championship game, Saint Francis has now clinched the second automatic bid.  

Tickets for the game are $7 for adults, $2 for students, and children six and under are free. All Indiana Wesleyan students with ID will receive free admission, courtesy of the Indiana Wesleyan athletic department. The NAIA Pass is the only pass that can be accepted in the postseason.