Phoenix, AZ- After a fast start by Cal Maritime, Arizona Christian responded with a dose of Senior Alyssa Gruber and Freshman Courtney Christmas to earn the 89-76 win.  Gruber ended with a game high 18 points while Christmas doubled up with 17 points and a game high 15 rebounds.

Junior Samantha Young opened the scoring with a made free throw.  But the Keelhaulers (0-6) scored the next six points and extended out to a six point lead three different times with the last time coming at 12-6.

But a pair of free throws by Christmas tied the score at 14-14.  Following a made free throw by Cal Maritime giving them a 15-14 lead, Gruber sank two free throws of her own to give ACU a 16-15 edge with 1:50 to play in the first quarter.  The Firestorm (4-0) would lead the remainder of the contest.

Despite ACU building a 10 point lead twice in the second period, Cal Maritime would not let Arizona Christian pull away as they constantly cut the deficit back into low single digit numbers.   At the break, ACU held a 42-35 advantage.

After 20 minutes of action, Christmas (12 points) and Gruber (10 points) were already in double digits in the scoring column.

The third quarter saw the Keelhaulers outscore the Firestorm 23-19 with the ACU lead never larger than nine at any point in the quarter.

However, the Firestorm saved the best for last as they produced a quarter best of 28 points in the fourth quarter.  Two free throws from Christmas and then a jumper by Gruber pushed Arizona Christian out to their largest lead of the night- 17 points on both occasions.

The double-double for Christmas was the first of her collegiate career and the first of the season for the Firestorm.

Joining Gruber and Christmas in double figures was Young with 15 points and Freshman Jada Willingham with 11 points.

Head Coach Odell Berry started his post-game comments with "I felt like this was a real team win.  We had several starters in foul trouble starting very early in the game.   The bench came in and were very effective in giving us some big minutes.  We felt like we were in control of the game from the beginning, even though we started down a few points early in the first quarter we were never out of control.  As the game progressed and the foul trouble worsened the next line of players really stepped up, competed and kept us in the game."

Berry added, "I thought Gruber stepped up on the offensive end when the Keelhaulers went to a triangle and two to try and take away the offense of (Senior) Madison Austin and Christmas.  Christmas had another great night with a double-double scoring 17 points and grabbing 15 boards.  Over all I am pleased with our weekend.  I think our young team had the chance to learn some more lessons and it is definitely a lot more fun to learn lessons from wins than to learn them from losses."

Come Thursday, the Firestorm will have the "tough" assignment of traveling to Hawaii for three games in four days.  Two of their games will come against the host of the BYU Hawaii Classic.  All games will be played at BYU Hawaii in Laie, HI.  The first game will be played on Friday at 8:00 pm (MT)/ 5:00 pm (HT).