Both teams struggled to find their shooting touch, specifically from long range on Saturday afternoon, but in the end it was Buena Vista holding visiting Central to only seven fourth quarter points en route to a 56-37 victory to remain unbeaten in Iowa Conference play.
The Beavers held a 16-13 lead after the first and took a 24-21 lead into the break. BVU then outscored the Dutch, 17-9, in the third to open up an 11-point lead and used a strong effort down the stretch to roll to the 19-point win.
Senior Jordan Tynes was the lone player to reach double figures for Buena Vista, turning in 10 points on 5-of-10 shooting. Sidney Beckman, Morgan Muhlbauer each followed with seven, as did McKenna Whitehill and Jessica Jager off the bench.
Junior Jasmine Demers was held to only five points offensively, but did her part on the defensive end in this contest, hauling in a career-high 17 rebounds, to go along with three blocks and two steals. Fellow junior Claudia Larsen came off the bench and added 10 boards, including five on the offensive end.
BVU forced 28 Central turnovers and held the Dutch without a single second-chance point.
The two sides combined to go 5-of-43 from downtown.
Claire Marburger, the IIAC's leading scorer at better than 23.0ppg, led all scorer's with 13 points. Nine of those points, however, came in the first half, including the first bucket of the game which gave Central its only lead at 2-0.
BVU had a pair of seven-point cushions in the first quarter before the Dutch scored the final four points to make it a three-point game. It remained a tight game until Jager's three-point make made it 35-25 with 3:51 left in the third and Central was unable to get any closer than eight from there.
The win pushes the Beaver record to 8-5 overall (4-0 IIAC). It marks the team's first 4-0 start to a conference schedule since it went 16-0 back in 2004-05.
BVU joins Wartburg College (13-1, 5-0 IIAC) as the only remaining unbeaten teams during IIAC play this year. The two teams meet up on Wednesday night inside of Siebens Fieldhouse for a 6:00pm contest. BVU was the only team to defeat the Knights twice last season during their Final Four run.