EUGENE, Ore.  – Junior Sami Pitts sank a school-record six three-pointers on Saturday night, scoring a career-best 19 points to lead the Northwest Christian University women's basketball team to an 84-62 victory over Northwest University.
 
You wouldn't know it from the final score but for much of the evening the Eagles hung around. After forcing six ties and trading the lead eight times in the first half, NU trailed just 33-32 at halftime and would have gone into the locker room with a lead save for a pair of free throws by NCU's MeShel Rad in the final second of the period.
 
The second half score remained close as well and the Eagles held a 44-42 lead with 15:52 to play. After a 7-0 run put the Beacons up by five, NU again tied the game at 49-49 with 12:24 to play. At that point the air seemed to come out of the tires for the Eagles as NCU pushed their way to an eleven points lead off a 14-3 run.
 
NCU kept adding to the advantage, going up by as many as 23 points before collecting the 22-point win. It was the largest Cascade Conference margin of victory for the Beacons since December 17, 2012, also against Northwest.
 
After going 2-for-2 from three-point range in the first half, Pitts poured it on in the second as she tied the school record set by Aly Bruns in 2012. She also tied the record for three-point shooting percentage for a single game as she went 6-for-7 from beyond the arc for an 86% clip.
 
In all, the Beacons (8-11, 4-7 CCC) had four players in double-figures. Melyssa Weber continued her strong play with 17 points. Chandler Gabrio scored 12 points and led all players with eight rebounds and MeShel Rad picked up 12 points and seven boards. Coming off the bench, junior Andrea Gloss scored nine points and six rebounds while once again tying her personal record with four blocks. It was her third straight game with four, giving her 23 on the season.
 
Northwest Christian shot 41% in the game and out-rebounded the Eagles 53-40. The NCU bench provided a large portion of the production and held a 33-15 advantage over their NU counterparts.

Head Coach Heath Alexander said, "This was a great team effort tonight. We were able to get contributions from our bench and we really executed down the stretch. It was a great win for our players and staff and our kids were a lot of fun to watch compete tonight."
 
Northwest (10-11, 3-8 CCC) was led by Jordan Asher, scoring 18 points as she hit four three-pointers. Chanara Green and Charmaine Bradford added nine points apiece. Northwest shot 30% in the game and collected seven steals including three each for Bradford and Asher.
 
With the win, NCU jumps ahead of the Eagles into sole possession of eighth place in the CCC. NCU is just two games out of fourth place in a very jumbled middle of the pack with seven games left to play in the conference season.
 
NCU returns to action next Friday, traveling to Klamath Falls where they will take on Oregon Tech (17-6, 6-5) at 5:30 p.m. Northwest will be at home on Friday night for a non-conference tilt with New Hope Christian College. They resume CCC action on Saturday night, hosting travel partner Evergreen (11-7, 5-6).