THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. - The Cal Lutheran women's basketball team has been hot in 2015 and they won their seventh straight game, and fifth in-a-row in conference play, with a 72-45 victory over Occidental on Saturday afternoon inside Gilbert Arena.
The Regals set the tone early in the game and jumped out to a 16-2 lead behind a complete team effort. During the opening minutes, the Violet and Gold got baskets from Jessica Salottolo, Natalie Stone, Taylor Messick, Katy Lindor, Sofia Cruz and Haley Hodgson.
Once again, the Regals full court pressure created turnovers by Occidental and CLU was able to capitalize on the offensive end.
The Tigers would make a run to get back in the game outscoring the Regals 17-10 over the next ten minutes to cut Cal Lutheran's lead to 26-19.
Known for her passing, averaging over six assists per game, Stone created some offensive opportunities for herself tonight and helped the Regals pull away late in the first half. A lay-up from Stone at the 5:54 mark ended the run from Occidental and shifted the momentum back to CLU.
Back-to-back layups from Messick gave the Violet and Gold a 37-25 lead going into the break.
In the second half, CLU leading scorer Chelsea Jacoby made her presence felt with an early three-pointer and went on to score 14 of her game-high 16 points in the half. The junior guard attacked the basket often in the half and finished 9-for-10 from the free-throw line for the game.
The Regals kept up the pace offensively and shot 48% (12-for-25) from the floor in the second-half and outscored Occidental 20-6 on fastbreak points and 34-24 in the paint.
In the waning minutes of the game Trianna Owen buried a step-back three-pointer with the shot-clock winding down to give the Regals a 30-point lead.
CLU continued to play team basketball all night and got strong play from Jacoby who finished with 16 points and seven rebounds, Cruz who added 14 points on 78% shooting (7-for-9) and Stone who still managed to dish out seven assists while scoring a season-high 11 points. Messick reached double-figures with 10 points while adding seven rebounds and Lindor grabbed a career-high 13 rebounds.
Occidental (2-12, 0-5 SCIAC) was led by Triana Anderson who had 13 points while Kendahl Wallis-Lang had six points, seven rebounds and five steals.
Cal Lutheran (10-4, 5-0 SCIAC) will go head-to-head against the only other unbeaten SCIAC member when they take on Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (12-3, 6-0 SCIAC) inside Gilbert Arena on Wednesday, Jan. 21 at 7:30 p.m.
Box Score: CLU 72, OXY 45
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