PORTLAND, Ore.—The Concordia women’s basketball team picked up a gutsy 70-65 win over Willamette on Friday.

The win gave Concordia (2-2) a positive result in a tight game after the team had started 0-2 in games decided by less than five points.

Willamette (0-1) made the Cavs work for it late, though, after a three-pointer from the Bearcats’ Jojo DeLong cut the CU lead to 68-64 with only 1:31 to go. The Bearcats then followed with a free throw with 52 seconds remaining to creep even closer at 68-65.

Now down to 27 seconds remaining, the Bearcats fouled senior Rachel Scarpelli who cooly knocked down a pair of free throws to put the Cavs back up by five at 70-65. Fellow senior Courtney May then stole the ball from the Bearcats with 18 seconds remaining and the Cavs could just wind down the clock from there.

Neither team could take much of an advantage early as the score went to halftime 28-27 with Willamette on top.

The Cavs then struck with a quick 9-0 run out of the break to give Concordia a 36-28 lead at the start of the second half. The run came so quickly that the team had scored all nine points in only 2:33 seconds of play. Scarpelli and May led the burst as Scarpelli scored five of the nine CU points off a three-pointer and a jumper, while May added the other four.

The run coming out of the half also gave Concordia the lead for good, though Willamette would come back to tie it at 52-52 after six straight points with 7:27 to go. However, Concordia responded with their own eight-point run to take control of the game back at 60-52 with 5:16 remaining.

The pressure then shifted to the Cavs to close out the win on the road, which the team proved more than capable of doing.

Individually, Scarpelli had a break-out game with 22 points off 7-of-10 shooting from the floor and 4-of-5 shooting from beyond the three-point line.

Besides Scarpelli, May and Padilla each scored 10 points for the Cavs with all 10 of Padilla’s points coming from the free-throw line where she was 10-for-10 on the night. May also recorded a strong all-around game with six rebounds, two assists and two steals. Meanwhile, Brittney Yates led the Cavs with eight rebounds, while Scarpelli came in second with seven.

For Willamette, three players scored in double figures led by MacKenzie Lamson with 17, while Julie Brand and Alexa Beeson followed with 10 each.

Overall, Concordia shot 38.5 percent in the game and 6-of-13, 46.2 percent, on three-pointers. Concordia also managed to get to the line more than Willamette as the Cavs doubled the Bearcats in made free throws, 24-to-12.

Concordia remains on the road for their next three games and will next play Simpson University on Monday, Nov. 21 at 6 p.m.