BANNOCKBURN, Ill. — The Goshen College women's basketball team turned up the pressure and finished off an undefeated weekend on Saturday, holding Trinity International University to 21 points in the second half of a 61-53 win at TIU's Trojan Classic.

Graysen Cockerham scored 17 points to pace the Maple Leafs (4-1), while Keyaira Murff blocked 3 shots and added 15 points of her own. Goshen outscored Trinity International 38-21 after halftime.

The Trojans (2-2) scored the last half-dozen points of the first quarter to lead 16-8 after 10 minutes of play. A pair of baskets early in the second put the hosts up 20-8, but over the final 27 minutes of regulation, Goshen would outscore TIU 53-33.

The Maple Leafs got 10 first-half points out of Cockerham, who sank a pair of 3-pointers and also pulled down a game-high 6 rebounds in that span, and added five points from Kiarah Copeland in the first 20 minutes. Cockerham's triple on the last play before halftime closed the Goshen deficit to 32-23.

Goshen's defense held Trinity without a basket for seven minutes coming out of the intermission, allowing four scorers to chip in to a 12-2 run that gave GC its first lead of the second half at 35-34. Krystal Walker's old-fashioned 3-point play, part of her game-high 24 points, put the Trojans back up by two, but the host offense was limited to one more field goal in the quarter and GC led 43-42 after three periods.

Walker added a triple on the first possession of the fourth quarter to put Trinity in front; it would be the final Trojan lead of the game. Cockerham tied the score with a layup 12 seconds later and Murff scored Goshen's next three points before Roe joined those two scorers to make another 7-0 run that spanned more than three minutes. With 2:04 to play, Goshen led 55-48, the largest GC lead to that point.

Trinity got a stop on its next possession, but three straight fouls thereafter set Haley Archibeque up to make all six free throws on the Maple Leaf end of the floor. Goshen's defense also did its part to prevent the comeback, holding TIU to two field goals in the last nine minutes and a 5-for-29 (17.2 percent) mark in the second half.

The Maple Leafs went 11-for-23 (47.8 percent) from the floor after halftime, making 13 of 15 foul shots for an 86.7 percent clip at the foul line. GC also forced 9 turnovers, posted a 21-15 rebounding edge and assisted on more than 80 percent of its second-half baskets.

All told, GC pulled down 42 rebounds to Trinity's 31 with Cockerham's 9 boards leading all players. Sydney Stein added 8 rebounds and Murff had 7; Taniece Chapman finished with 10 points and 5 rebounds off the bench.

Trinity finished 16-of-54 (29.6 percent) from the floor: outside of Walker, no Trojan scored more than 8 points. Hunter Noa led the team with 5 assists, two short of Archibeque's game high.

Cockerham, who had 2, was the only player with multiple steals.

Notable Numbers:

1.33: The Maple Leafs posted 16 assists against 12 turnovers, which was their best ratio in that category since 2016. GC has now posted high-water marks in assist-to-turnover ratio in two straight games after recording a 1.29 mark on Friday against Kentucky Christian.

7: Archibeque's 7 assists were a new career high; she had single-season highs of 6 in each of the last two campaigns, most recently against Cardinal Stritch on Nov. 3, 2017.

4: The win was Goshen's fourth in a row, marking the Maple Leafs' longest win streak since another four-game span from December 3-20, 2016.

Quoting GC head coach Stephanie Miller:
"I'm proud of our ladies for continuing to grow, finding ways to finish out games and controlling the final 3 minutes.

"TIU is really an improved team this year and we knew we were going to have a real challenge on our hands tonight. Our zone made it difficult to run their more comfortable sets and forced them to live and die from the outside. Then we did a strong job as a team on the glass and that was the difference in the game.

"We left a lot of offense on the table tonight by struggling to finish at times, but I like the improvements we showed this weekend with moving and sharing the ball. Our team assists are going to be a true sign of how well our offense is connecting this season, so putting up two strong performances in the assist-to-turnover category is a big step in the right direction.

"Keyaira Murff and Taniece Chapman did a great job attacking their center and getting her in foul trouble. That inside presence was just too much for TIU to overcome, and those two along with Sydney Stein, were a force on the glass. Murff was particularly assertive tonight and demanded the ball on offense while really patrolling the paint on defense. Graysen Cockerham and Alyson Prigge also had big weekends for us and shot the ball well from beyond the arc while doing work on the glass.

"The unsung hero of the weekend was the steady point-guard play of Haley Archibeque. She had the best two-game stretch of her career as an assists leader, and she truly set the table and put her teammates in great position to score. She has really embraced her role and understands what we are trying to do.

"Overall, I'm just darn proud of the girls and love to see them learning the game and becoming gritty and using toughness to get the job done. We have a ways to go and a lot to clean up, but we are improving, and that's all I want to see day in and day out.

Up Next: The Maple Leafs return home for their next four games, which come in an eight-day span beginning on Tuesday night. Goshen hosts Kalamazoo College of NCAA Division III at 7 p.m.