LONDON, Ont. - Fourth-year guard Maddy Horst scored a team-high 17 points and nine rebounds to help lift the Western women's basketball team to a 64-58 victory over the Waterloo Warriors on Friday evening in Alumni Hall.

But the game proved to be bigger than basketball for the Mustangs, as tonight marked Western's "Shoot for the Cure" game, where they celebrated the efforts of those involved in the One Run to help raise money for Cancer Research.

"Cancer is an illness that reaches a lot of people either directly and indirectly and I think everyone on the team has had an experience with it in one form or another, so tonight was a night that meant a lot to us," said Mustangs head coach Brian Cheng. "We have to continue shooting and fighting for the cure and luckily we have community leaders that are willing to fight every day. The "One Run" has done so much good, this was bigger than basketball, it's a microcosm of life. I'm very proud we could support that, so it was a double-win tonight."

With the win, the Mustangs improve to a 4-11 record on the season and rise into seventh place in the OUA West division standings. The Warriors' loss drops their record to 4-12 on the season, as they fall into ninth place in a tightly-contested OUA West.

Laura Graham also scored in double-figures for the purple and white in the win, scoring an impressive 15 points and chipping in three assists and three steals on the night.

Waterloo was led by Kaitlyn Overeem, who scored a game-high 22 points to help lead her team.

"It's hard having rookies come into a new system and get used to the speed of the game defensively, but I think we're starting to find our identity as a defensive team and tonight was a good summary of that improvement," said Horst. "I think at this point, we've done well to incorporate them into how we play Western basketball, so we just need to keep pushing the pace and limiting our turnovers, but we're getting there."

"We found ourselves with two of our starters injured kind of last minute, so tonight was about improvising and I'm proud of how well we did so, considering," said Cheng. "It's not always how good your original plans are, sometimes it's about how well you can modify those plans. I think we're finding ourselves defensively and that's going to be important if we want to keep putting wins on the board."

The Warriors emphasized attacking the paint early in the opening frame, earning easy chances at the rim and finding their way to the free throw line in the process. Western continued to stay in the game behind their swift ball movement and the play of Horst and Graham, eventually taking the lead thanks to an incredible defensive run led by the two senior guards. The Mustangs continued to lock down defensively for the remainder of the frame, heading into the second with a 22-15 advantage.

Emma Johnson quickly emerged as Western's primary scorer to begin the second quarter to extend the Mustangs' lead. Waterloo continued to find their way to the free throw line with their aggressive drives to the basket, but a continued effort from Horst on both ends of the floor left the purple and white heading into halftime with a 35-29 lead.

The three-point shot continued to drop for the Mustangs on kick-outs from Graham and Horst throughout the third quarter, as the Mustangs grew their lead midway through the frame. However, offensive rebounds from the Warriors and easy put-back layups kept the purple and white from pulling ahead for good as the Mustangs went into the fourth with a 51-43 lead.

Western continued to connect from beyond the arc to kick off the fourth quarter, quickly extending their lead behind the long-range shot and exhausting the Waterloo defence. The Warriors continued to crash the offensive boards and earn second chances until the final, as they had all game long, but it proved to be just too little, too late, as the Mustangs walked away with the slight 64-58 victory and their third-straight victory.

"Momentum moving forward is always important, so we're going to try and take our mentality from tonight, carry it into tomorrow's game, and give our best with what we have," said Cheng. "Winning hides all wounds, so we're going to leave this game feeling good, but we still have some blemishes to clean up."

"We're trying not to get too far ahead of ourselves right now as happy as we are with the win," said Horst. "We know we have a long way to go after injuries got us off to such a slow start, but we're just taking it one game at a time and hoping to add another win tomorrow."

The Mustangs will be back in action tomorrow, Saturday, January 19, where they will take on the Guelph Gryphons in what will be their second and final meeting of the regular season. The game is scheduled to tip off at 6:00 P.M. EST and fans can catch all the action live on OUA.tv.