LA VERNE, Calif. — The University of La Verne women's basketball team took advantage of 29 Caltech turnovers to beat the Beavers, 55-47, at Frantz Court on Saturday afternoon.

La Verne improves to 8-9 overall and 5-3 in SCIAC play. Caltech drops to 0-18 and 0-9.

Despite allowing Caltech to shoot 46.5 percent from the field, the Leopards turned the Beavers' miscues into 29 points. La Verne also attempted 16 more shots than Caltech despite getting outrebounded, 36-26.

Shannon Irwin came up with a couple of key plays down the stretch to help hold off the Beavers. She drained a big three-pointer from the right wing to extend La Verne's lead to eight with 2:39 to go and after Caltech answered with a layup on the next possession, pushed the tempo to find a trailing Emily Myers for a short jumper.

Caltech cut the lead to six two different occasions afterwards, but that was as close as it would get.

Irwin finished with 17 points, four rebounds, seven assists and six steals.

Faye Osburn also had a big three in the second half, stretching La Verne's lead to 43-35 after the Beavers got within five. On La Verne's next possession, she found Irwin for a transition three. Osburn finished with a career-high 10 points.

Myers also chipped in 10 points for La Verne

Kate Lewis kept the Beavers afloat with 15 points and 11 rebounds. But with Caltech running most of their sets through her and putting the ball in her hands, Lewis committed nine turnovers.

Caltech stayed within striking distance the whole game, but could not quite put together a big enough run. The Beavers did briefly take a lead midway through the first half with a 6-0 run when Lewis hit a layup, assisted Kristin Anderson on their next possession and finished the run off with a short jumper to give the Beavers a 16-14 lead.

But Irwin and Osburn hit a string of mid- and long-range jumpers—accounting for La Verne's last 11 points of the first half—to give the Leopards a seven-point lead at halftime.

Stephanie Wong led Caltech with 16 points and added six rebounds.

La Verne returns to action on the road at Redlands on Wednesday, Jan. 28. The tipoff is scheduled at 7:30 p.m.