Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – CR’s Ashley Quigley battles for possession during Saturday’s game.

By Ray Hamill — College of the Redwoods and Butte both moved two wins clear of the chasing pack in the Golden Valley Conference with wins in women’s basketball on Saturday.

While Butte was beating Siskiyous 94-71, the Corsairs got the better of Lassen 83-78 in front of a big home crowd.

The two GVC frontrunners are now 5-1 in conference play with a huge matchup looming next weekend.

On Saturday, the CR women started strong and were able to hold off the visiting Cougars down the stretch, getting the better of the only team to have beaten them in the past nine games.

CR’s Darienne Kartes

“We came out very focused,” CR head coach Jain Tuey said. “And I think defensively we executed what we practiced and talked about.”

Ashley Quigley continued to impress with a team-high 20 points in the win, finding her groove along with some of her teammates in the third quarter.

Quigley nailed three 3-pointers in the period, with Darienne Kartes hitting two more and Bree Northern a sixth for the team in the quarter.

Add in a Juliana Ortega-Miranda plus-one, and the Corsairs pulled out to a 16-point lead that the visitors were never able to recover from.

Bree Northern

Northern was instrumental in the win at both ends of the court, finishing with 16 points and doing a good job directing traffic.

With the win, the Corsairs are now 17-4 overall.

They play at Siskiyous on Thursday and at Butte on Saturday before returning home the following weekend for their two regular-season finales.