Ashley Bartow

The Master’s University women’s basketball team avenged December’s 78-68 overtime loss to Arizona Christian on Saturday by beating the Firestorm 70-63 on Bross Court.

The win, TMU’s sixth straight, improved the 21st-ranked Lady Mustangs’ record to 18-6 overall and 8-5 in Golden State Athletic Conference play. ACU fell to 12-11 overall (6-6 GSAC).

“I’m enjoying seeing our resilience displayed,” commented TMU head coach Dan Waldeck. “We didn’t play our best, but we played hard, and we played together. We made big plays at key times. ACU is playing well, so this is a great win for us.”

After a sluggish start when TMU trailed ACU for the majority of the first quarter, Ashley Bartow converted a layup with 57 seconds on the clock to tie the score at 14-14. Bartow’s sharpshooting opened the second quarter with a three-pointer and sparked an offensive assault that resulted in TMU leading the Firestorm 34-28 at halftime.

At the break, Bartow led all scorers with 11 points. As a team, the Lady Mustangs went 12-28 (43%) from the field, 2-11 (18%) on three-pointers, and a perfect 9-9 on free throws.

The afternoon’s second half opened with TMU picking up where it left off as the Lady Mustangs posted an afternoon-high 19-point advantage on two separate occastions. Hannah Ostrom drained a three-pointer at the 5:46 mark in the third quater, giving the Mustangs a 48-29 advantage. Forty-three seconds later, Bianca Cubello delivered a trey that put the Lady Mustangs up again by 19 points (50-31).

Despite ACU’s impressive second-half offensive effort that matched the Lady Mustangs’ 17 points in the third quarter and narrowly outscoring TMU 19-18 in the fourth quarter, the Firestorm was unable to muster a comeback. In the fourth quarter, TMU maintained a lead that reached as high as 15 points en route to its victory.

Bartow finished the day with a team-leading 15 points, Ostrom finished close behind with 14, and Megan Lindsley also scored in double digits with 12 more. Cubello grabbed a team-high six rebounds while Lindsley dished out three assists and had two steals. Notably, Cubello’s nine points moved her into ninth place on the program’s all-time scoring list with 1,213 points.

Collectively, TMU finished the day by going 22-52 (42%) from the field, 6-21 (28%) from behind the arc, and 20-23 (87%) at the charity stripe.

Next week, TMU will compete in its final two home games of the regular season. The Lady Mustangs will host William Jessup on Thursday at 5:30 p.m. and Menlo next Saturday at 4:00 p.m.

Following next Saturday’s game, the Lady Mustangs will honor their six seniors (Bartow, Cubello, Linsley, Sydney Emory, Kelly Burns, and Aubrey Bekendam) in a special Senior Day ceremony.