Loyola Makes Up Lost Ground : College Basketball: After a 2-4 start, the Lady Lions improve record to 7-7. They face Santa Clara in the conference opener.

A surging Loyola Marymount women’s basketball team has lifted its record to .500 (7-7) just in time to take on Santa Clara University in its West Coast Conference opener tonight at Gersten Pavilion.

By WCC standards, Loyola is a relatively big team, with three starters 5-foot-10 or taller, that likes to run. The team is hoping to control the game by taking the perimeter shot away from Santa Clara.

“We want to be able to dictate the places that Santa Clara is going to be able to shoot from,” said Loyola Coach Todd Corman. “We have to be able to control the boards.”

The advantage is definitely in the hands of Loyola, which has had all of its victories at home. The only home loss this season came against Arizona State, 82-72. The Lady Lions are in the middle of a five-game homestand.

After upset victories over Fresno State and Georgia Tech, Santa Clara’s Lady Broncos (4-9) have lost five straight.

“Santa Clara is definitely a finesse team that doesn’t have a tough inside game,” Corman said.

The Lions have won five of their last eight games after a 2-4 start, including a 61-50 victory over Cal State Dominguez Hills on Monday. The game was touted as a tough matchup and lived up to it. At the end of the first half the score was 24-24.

In the second half, Loyola pulled away to an 11-point lead on the solid play of Lynn Flanagan (14 points), Tricia Gibson (13 points, 11 rebounds) and Kristen Bruich (13 points, five assists).

“It was something of a letdown when we played Dominguez because we didn’t play hard the entire game,” Corman said. “We know who we are playing and I think we played down because it was Division I against Division II.”

Bruich, Flanagan and Gibson have provided most of the offensive and defensive punch for the Lions. Bruich, a 5-foot-8 junior guard, is averaging 15.1 points and leads the conference in steals with an average of 3.9 per game. Flanagan, a 5-foot-8 junior, is having the best year of her career, scoring 14.3 points per game.

Gibson, a 6-foot-3 junior center, leads the conference in shot blocking, averaging three per game.

The leading scorer for Santa Clara is Julie Lienert at 14.1 per game. Jennifer Lucas is leading the conference in assists with an average of 7.3.

The game against Santa Clara is a tuneup for a Saturday night game against the University of San Diego (11-3). Corman says this is going to be a pivotal weekend that could determine how the rest of the season goes.

San Diego plays at Pepperdine tonight.