LA VERNE — Crystal Goodwin and Alyssa Mort scored 14 points and Ashton Reid added 13, leading the Occidental College women's basketball team to a road victory over La Verne on Thursday, 53-48.

Oxy improves to 10-7 and 4-5 in SCIAC play. The Leopards fall to 10-7 and 5-3.

"It's a big win for us against a good team on the road," Oxy coach Anahit Aladzhanyan said. "Crystal, Ashton and Mort all had great games, our bigs played very well inside and our press made them uncomfortable at times."

Oxy forced La Verne into 23 turnovers.

The Tigers have gone up-tempo with their full-court pressure defense and turned their season around. The first time Oxy met ULV, the Tigers lost by 14.

This time around, they were able to junk it up enough to take a 19-16 lead into halftime and hold off the Leopards after the game was tied around the 8-minute mark in the second half.

In Oxy's last five games, the Tigers are 3-2 with two narrow losses to Chapman and Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, the league's two best teams.

Brittni Walker led Oxy with 10 rebounds.

La Verne's Teresa Fetal had 17 boards and Shannon Irwin led the Leopards with 20 points.

Oxy has the weekend off and then hosts Cal Lutheran on Jan. 30 at 7:30 at Rush Gymnasium.

"We need to carry this momentum into a big week of practice and get better for the second round of SCIAC play," Aladzhanyan said.