RICHARDSON, Texas  Mady Burdett's 24 points led all scorers, but the sophomore's career high wasn't enough for No. 19 Whitman College as the Blues were dealt a 65-59 season-ending defeat by East Texas Baptist University Friday in the opening round of the NCAA Division III Women's Basketball Championship.

The Tigers (23-6) advance to play in Saturday's Round 2 Regional championship against either host University of Texas at Dallas or Trinity (Texas) University, which play in the late game Friday.

Whitman (22-5) owned the lead for nearly four minutes longer than did ETBU, owned the largest lead of the game -- 41-32 in the third quarter -- and had Burdett raining down 3s all game long.

The first bucket of the game for the Blues was a Burdett trey and over the next 39 minutes she dropped in seven more to finish 8-for-13 from the floor, and all from beyond the arc.

Despite that career night, the Whitman attack as a whole was halting, scoring in spurts then suffering through droughts.

Trailing 17-13 near the end of the first quarter the Blues scored the final six points of the frame to forge a 19-17 advantage, closed out with a Maegen Martin layup and one.

Neither team was exactly 'on' during the second quarter but like in the first quarter Whitman finished on a roll using an 8-2 run to enter the break leading 33-27.

The Blues continued to click at the start of the third and added to the cushion until their 41-32 lead at the 6:26 mark.

That's is when the smoothness of their attack wilted.

East Texas Baptist went on a 14-2 spurt to leap ahead, 46-43, only to have Whitman's Emily Rommel hit a jumper from 10 feet, followed by the front end of two foul shots by Sierra McGarity that knotted the score at 46-46 through three quarters of action.

The Tigers were first to take command in the final frame, breaking out to a 53-49 edge.

The neutral-site home team -- ETBU's campus is less than 160 miles from UT-Dallas, and the Tigers had their Pep Band and cheerleaders in attendance to spur on the vocal ETBU crowd -- fought off several threats from the Blues, but a Casey Poe free throw finally pushed Whitman in front, 59-58, with 1:09 left on the clock.

Seven of eight shooting from the charity stripe over that final minute brought the Tigers back, though, and cemented the victory.

Rommel and Martin chipped in with seven points apiece to help Burdett, while Rommel also added a game-high nine rebounds to help push Whitman in front, 38-36, in the battle off the glass.

The Blues, however, had an uncharacteristic 17 turnovers while tying a season low in steals with just two.

East Texas Baptist, just 3-22 last season, was led by Kim Childress' 17 and Erin Meeks' 15 points.

Friday's NCAA tournament game was the first for ETBU.