ORANGE — Despite playing with its star on the bench in foul trouble for most of the game, the Occidental College women's basketball team erased a double-digit lead, came up with a critical defensive stop with the score tied, then converted a picture-perfect fast break as time expired to beat Chapman University 59-57 at the Hutton Center on Tuesday.

Makenzie Brandon (Seattle), the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference's leading scorer who picked up four fouls in her first seven minutes played, rebounded Kim Takaoa's miss with six seconds left, spun and found Liz Little (Littleton, CO) at the top of the Panthers key, then Little hit a streaking Katelyn Rowe (Carlsbad) for the game-winning left-handed layup.

"(Brandon) got the ball and I just sprinted down the court hoping the guards would get it to me," said Rowe, who finished with 12 points and 16 rebounds. "I saw Liz get it and muscle memory took over from there."

The 6-foot-3 Rowe took two elongated strides from the 3-point line and barely released the ball before the red light went on.

"I didn't even realize I was that far away from the basket," Rowe said. "I saw the clock out of the corner of my eye and that's how I knew to take the layup."

Brandon was forced to the bench with no points after picking up two quick fouls just five minutes into the game. Then in the second half, Brandon left the game after being whistled for reaching and an offensive foul, giving her four with 18:27 left.

When she returned to the game with 11:30 to go, she was determined not to let the Tigers lose. Brandon scored all of her game-high 15 points in the second half and had eight points during a 16-5 Oxy run to end the game.

"It's never fun to come out and play like seven minutes in the first three quarters of a game," Brandon said. "Really I was just fed up. We'd been working so hard I just didn't fee like they deserved the game."

When Brandon was out in the first half, Little carried the bulk of the Oxy offense, scoring eight of her career-high 12 points. The junior guard went 6 for 6 from the free throw line.

Before the last 10 minutes of the game, Oxy (10-2) struggled with the Panthers (10-6) run-and-jump full-court pressure — a type of press that tries to encourage a dribbler to go too fast and lose control — turning the ball over 25 times.

Occidental coach Heidi VanDerveer said she expected her team to turn it over against a pressure team like Chapman, but pointed out that the Tigers 13 turnovers in the first half were more costly than the 12 they committed in the second.

"We knew we were going to turn the ball over. Their defense is very disruptive," VanDerveer said. "We weathered the storm in the first half and we really showed up and played in the second half. We went a little smaller and our guards figured out the pressure puzzle."

And they found a way to win, something that Oxy's now done in three consecutive meetings with the Panthers.

Chapman hasn't beaten Oxy since March 4, 2009 when they defeated the Tigers 70-65 in overtime in the first round of the NCAA Division III playoffs. VanDerveer is 3-2 against Chapman in her four years at Oxy.

Tigers starting center Elizabeth Messick (Reno, NV), who's averaging 7.3 rebounds per game, missed her third game in a row with an ankle injury. Messick is expected to return to the lineup when Oxy travels to play at Pomona-Pitzer on Thursday at 7:30 p.m.