SANTA CLARITA, Calif. – The Master’s College women’s basketball team closed out its home schedule Tuesday night in the best way possible by upsetting No. 6 Vanguard 77-61 in front of an energetic crowd at Bross Court.

The win improved the 10th-ranked Lady Mustangs’ record to 23-3 and 13-1 in GSAC play.

“I’m really proud of the way we played in the first and fourth quarters,” commented eighth-year TMC head coach Dan Waldeck. “Vanguard did a great job of attacking us in there middle of the game, and we needed a poised response. Thankfully, that’s exactly what we got. We continue to have different players step up when needed to lead us to victory.”

TMC’s dominance was on display early and often as the Lady Mustangs posted their largest lead of the evening (16 points) with a 24-8 advantage at the 8:47 mark in the second quarter.

However, the Lions kept the Lady Mustangs on their toes as their resilience offense championed a 21-point scoring rampage, cutting TMC’s lead to 34-27 at the break.

At intermission, TMC’s Bianca Cubello (Riverside, CA) led all scorers with 10 points, while teammate Chayan Lowery (Spring Valley, CA) followed close behind with nine. Cubello paced TMC’s first half defensive efforts by grabbing five rebounds.

The Lions continued to claw away at TMC’s lead until Samanta Doucette put Vanguard up 45-44 after draining a pair of free throws with 2:28 left in the third quarter.

After trading blows in the waning moments of the third quarter and in the opening four minutes of the fourth quarter, TMC regained the lead with 6:31 left to play after Megan Lindsley (Vancouver, WA) sunk a pair of free throws to put the Lady Mustangs up 58-57.

From there, TMC caught a second wind and rocketed out on a 19-4 scoring run, closing the evening out with a commanding 77-61 victory.

Megan Lindsley finished the evening by leading all scorers with 20 points. Lindsley was joined by three other Lady Mustangs who scored in double digits as Lowery and Cubello each posted 16 points while Nicole Nitake (Torrance, CA) scored 10. Cubello grabbed a team-leading 10 rebounds.

Collectively, TMC went 30-58 (52%) from the field, 7-19 (37%) from behind the arc, and 10-13 (77%) from the charity stripe. After four tightly-contested quarters, the Lady Mustangs tallied 27 rebounds, 16 rebounds, 9 turn overs, five steals and four blocks.

The Lady Mustangs have little time to celebrate Tuesday’s win as they face No. 2 Westmont College on Thursday in Santa Barbara. Back on February 2, the Warriors snapped TMC’s impressive 16-game winning streak with a 66-57 win on Bross Court.

“Westmont is another really good team that does a little of everything,” assessed Waldeck. “They are experienced, disciplined, talented, and well coached. We’ll need to be at our best.”

Tipoff is slated for 5:30 p.m.