PITTSBURGH, PA (November 19, 2010) . . . The Chatham University women's basketball team advance to the championship match-up tomorrow in the Fourth Annual Purple Reign Tip-Off Tournament for the fourth time in four year by defeating visiting Franciscan University 58-40 tonight.

Chatham was led tonight by first year Carly Zelenak (Mt. Pleasant, PA/Mt. Pleasant), who scored a career-high 18 points off the bench for her team. Zelenak went seven for 11 from the field and shot four for six from the charity stripe in the victory.

The Cougars also saw a key performance from red-shirt junior Lizz King (Cabot, PA/Knoch), who recorded her first career "double double" as she finished with 16 points and a career-high 10 rebounds. King also made four three pointers in the victory tonight, raising her career total to 103. With this statistic, King became just the fifth Chatham women's basketball player to go over 100 three point field goals made in a career.

Senior Barb Petty (Amelia, OH/Glen Este) finished tonight's game with a team-high five assists, bringing her career total to 173. Petty now holds the career record for assists for Chatham, a record previously held by Kristin Kramer (2000-04) with 168.

The defending Purple Reign Champion Cougars (2-0, 0-0) return to action tomorrow afternoon at 3 pm for the championship game against the winner of the North Carolina Wesleyan College and Carlow University match-up (taking place at 8 pm tonight).

Chatham University prepares students from around the world to help develop solutions to some of the world's biggest challenges.  Every Chatham student – women in Chatham's historic women's residential college, and men and women in Chatham's graduate programs – receives a highly individualized, experiential educational experience that is informed by Chatham's strong institutional commitment to globalism, the environment and citizen leadership.  Founded in 1869, Chatham University includes the Shadyside Campus, with Chatham Eastside and the historic 39-acre Woodland Road arboretum, and the 388-acre Eden Hall Farm Campus north of Pittsburgh. For more information call 800-837-1290 or visit www.chatham.edu.