The Gustavus women’s basketball team opened its trip to California with a 53-50 victory over Occidental College Friday night in Los Angeles. The win improves the Gusties to 1-1, while Occidental falls to 1-1 early on the season.
Senior captain Colleen Ruane led the Gusties as the team’s only double-digit scorer with 13 points on 5-of-13 shooting from the field. Ruane also nabbed a team-high eight rebounds.
Occidental led by as much as five points early in both halves, but the Gusties used a 12-3 run starting at the 14:55 mark in the second, which lasted 5:43, to go ahead by four points. Occidental tied it up with 5:36 remaining in the game (45-45), however Gustavus countered with an 8-5 scoring advantage to close out the game.
Gustavus ends its California trip Saturday night with a 9:00 p.m. match-up against the University of Redlands in Redlands.