LA MIRADA, Calif. –
Justyce Harris and freshman
Izzy Navarro had career outings and the Concordia University Irvine women's basketball team played suffocating defense to lock down the first conference victory of the season on Wednesday night.
CUI kept the host Eagles from finding their rhythm with active hands and forced 20 steals on its way to claiming a 76-61 win at Biola.
Navarro poured in a career-high 27 points and tied her season-highs of five steals and five rebounds to go with four assists.
Harris contributed a career-high nine points and matched her personal best with four rebounds while also coming up with three steals.
The Green and Gold also went 11-for-26 on three-pointers (42 percent). Five different Golden Eagles hit a trey, with senior
Camryn Kiernan and Biola alum
Stephanie Lee each hitting a pair.
Lee is closing in on 1,000 career points between her time at both schools over the past five years. She ended the evening with those two treys to push her total to 990 career points.
After clawing their way to a 4-point lead at halftime by a score of 32-28, CUI opened up a double-digit lead in the third quarter. Navarro drained a deep three-pointer to open the scoring after intermission and tallied 11 of her 27 points in the period. She also served as a solid play-maker with the ball, dishing out four assists including a couple of pretty dimes to Harris and
Savannah Felix-Amoroso in the second half.
"Extremely proud of our team," said Navarro. "The defense and the steals were what really got our offense going. Once we started capitalizing off of their offensive mistakes was when we really opened up a big lead."
Navarro has now scored at least 20 points in each of her last three outings. She has scored in double figures in four straight and five of her first seven collegiate games.
Erika Maggard also made her first start of the season and chipped in with two points, three steals and four rebounds. She was one of seven players to have at least two steals.
Next on tap for the Golden Eagles will be a road match at Point Loma this Saturday, Dec. 9 at 2 p.m.
PacWest play then continues when Concordia hosts the Dominican Penguins for their first home game in conference play next Saturday, Dec. 16 at 2 p.m. That game will be followed by the CUI men's home opener against the Penguins at 4:30 p.m.
CLICK HERE for the full CUI women's basketball schedule
