Senior Jessica Christensen (Turin, Iowa/Wes Monona) turned in a double-double and was one of four players to score in double figures on Saturday night, as the Buena Vista women's basketball team held off a scrappy Central College team inside of Siebens Fieldhouse, 66-56.

Christensen shot 6-of-15 from the field, including a pair of three-point buckets, while also making one of her two free-throw attempts.  She also grabbed a game-high five offensive rebounds.  Fellow senior Laura Hilby (Johnston, Iowa/Johnston) scored six of her 13 points at the free-throw line, while also dishing out six assists.  Sophomore Susan Kies (Fonda, Iowa/Newell-Fonda) came off the bench and scored seven of her 12 points at the charity stripe, while junior Brooke Wehle (Denison, Iowa/Denison-Schleswig) buried a pair of shots from beyond the arc to finish with 10 points.

The Beavers, which shot 43 percent from the field in the first half, led by six early on at 13-7 before Central rallied back with a 13-5 run to build its largest lead of the game (20-15) with under eight minutes left. 

Kies then went to the free-throw line and sank both attempts to help spark a key 10-0 run to put BVU back up five with less than four minutes before the half.  Kies later made two more from the charity stripe to give the Beavers a 12-point cushion and the team took a 36-29 lead into the locker room.

The Dutch clawed their way back to within 39-36 less than four minutes into the second half before BVU went on to score 11 of the game's next 15 points to go back up by double-digits with 11 minutes left.  Central chipped away at that lead and got as close as five only two minutes later, but back-to-back three's from Kies and Wehle quickly pushed that advantage back to 11 with under eight minutes to play.

Central got as close as 56-50 later in the half, but a layup and three-pointer from Christensen, coupled with two free-throws by Wehle gave BVU an 11-point lead with under a minute to play.

Defensively, the Beavers held Central (5-15, 0-11 IIAC) to only 35 percent shooting, while forcing 23 turnovers.

Buena Vista pushes its record to 9-10 on the year (4-6 IIAC) and the team will be back in action again on Wednesday night for a 6:00pm road contest at Loras College (13-7, 8-3 IIAC).