Jodie Burton won her 500th game as head women's basketball coach on Saturday night as CMS won at Caltech 51-36.  She is the 15th coach in Division III history to achieve the milestone.  CMS improved to 8-5 overall and 2-0 in SCIAC while Caltech fell to 0-13 and 0-2.

The historic win was not easy despite the differences in the records of the two teams.  CMS did not play two of their normal starters (Frannie Hemmelgarn, Kimberly Scamman) due to minor injuries and the team struggled without their leading scorer and point guard.  The Athenas led early 8-2, but then had more than a 12 minute stretch without scoring.  CMS missed 22 straight shots and Caltech went on a 10-0 run and finished the half outscoring the Athenas 14-2.

The Athena offense picked up in the second half and CMS retook the lead at 19-18, but were unable to shake the Beavers as Caltech eventually tied the game at 27.  CMS put the game away with a 15-2 run and held on to give Burton her milestone win.  Lyndsay Bergus led the Athenas with 19 points and added seven rebounds.  Madeline Barnes added 11 points.  Rachel Hess led Caltech with 15 points.

CMS next plays at Cal Lutheran on Thursday, January 12 with game time set for 7:30.

Burton's career record now stands at 500-293 (.631).  She is the winningest coach in SCIAC basketball history.  Former Redlands coach Gary Smith has the most wins (450) among SCIAC men's coaches and current Pomona-Pitzer coach Kathy Connell (346) is next among SCIAC women's coaches.  Burton, who is now 234-134 (.636) in SCIAC games, has also won more SCIAC games than any other coach.  In fact, she has more SCIAC wins than all of the other schools in the conference except Pomona-Pitzer.

Burton is now in her 32nd year at CMS and only nine coaches among all Divisions of the NCAA have coached for more years with one team.  She has won six SCIAC titles and finished second 13 times.  Her teams have won 20 or more games nine times.