Box Score SALEM, Ore. --- The No. 10-ranked Bruins continued their undefeated season Saturday afternoon, as George Fox beat the Bearcats of Willamette University, 78-54.
It was an eventful first half for the Bruins, who shot 53.6 percent from the field and 57.1 percent from beyond the arc. The Bearcats kept pace with the top-ranked Bruins early on in the half, but the hot handed George Fox team kept the Bearcats at a cozy distance. The Bruins increased their lead to a 13-point margin at the 4:58 mark after Dacia Heckendorf knocked down a trey, 33-20.
The Bruins went into the break up, 43-29.
"I thought we gave a tremendous team effort tonight," said head coach Michael Meek. "We showed a lot of fight and anytime you can get a road win in conference is big. I thought we did a lot of things well tonight, but I was impressed with the ball sharing and execution."
The second half was almost identical to the first, as the Bearcats made an early surge, but the top-ranked team held them off cruising to a 24-point victory.
George Fox was lights out from all areas finishing with a 55.6 percent shooting clip from the field and 50 percent clip from the 3-point line. They also finished 75 percent from the charity stripe.
As a team, they out-rebounded the Bearcats 34-25 and forced 21 turnovers. They recorded 10 steals with Jami Morris leading the pack with four.
Justine Benner continued her dominance this season and was two rebounds shy of a double-double with 21 points and 8 rebounds. Lauren Codling went 6-for-9 from the field and added 14 points and 9 rebounds. Nicole Blizzard put up nine points in the second half totaling 13 in the game, while Morris finished with 12 on 3-for-4 shooting from 3-point land. Sammy Naluai rounded out the scoring with 10 points.
"I thought we gave a really great team effort and shot the ball really well," said Benner. "We all want to be able to come out play as hard as we can, and I thought we did that tonight. We have really good communication when it comes to getting the ball around and it's always a team effort when we play. As a team we want to continue to get better and hold each other accountable to our end goals."
The Bruins improve to 13-0 on the season and 4-0 in the Northwest Conference.
Next week the Bruins will host Whitman on the 16th at 6:00 p.m. and then Whitworth on the 17th at 4:00 p.m.
