Courtesy: Eric McFarland Von Wright had eight points in the first 2:43 of the game.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. --- Justus Von Wright made his first start of the season, and made a pretty strong case for why he should stay there.

Von Wright scored a career-high 15 points, including eight in the first 2:43 of the game, to get California Baptist University going as the Lancers rolled to an impressive 95-64 win over La Sierra Thursday night in the Van Dyne Gym.

The Lancers scored the first 16 points of the game, including Von Wright’s eight, and led wire-to-wire. Then, when La Sierra thought it could play with the Lancers, CBU responded with a 17-6 run to start the second half, putting to rest any doubt.

Five Lancers scored in double-figures as the Lancers nearly doubled their scoring output from last Saturday when they scored just 54 in a loss to Northwest Christian (Ore.). Davey Hopkins led the way with 19 points, going 7-for-10 from the floor. Von Wright needed just 19 minutes to get his 15 points, and he also added four rebounds, four steals and three assists.

“Justus is a good player, and he’s learning our system,” said CBU Head Coach Tim Collins, who picked up his 399th career win (at four-year schools). “He’s starting to show the progress he’s making, and he gave us a good spark right from the start.”

Jamar Ransome came off the bench and contributed 12 points and 11 rebounds in 23 minutes, including an electrifying one-handed tip-dunk that gave the Lancers a 60-39 lead and then another dunk less than two minutes later.

“Jamar came off the bench and gave us great energy,” said Collins. “That was nice to have tonight.”

The win gets the Lancers back on the winning track as they rebound from their first loss of the season and improve to 5-1.

La Sierra falls to 1-1.

The Lancers scored 21 of the first 23 points and took a 28-10 lead on a Clint Amberry jumper, but the Golden Eagles responded with 10 straight points, eight of which came from Ronald Coleman, to get within 28-20. However, every time La Sierra tried to make things interesting, the Lancers had an answer.

Once the lead ballooned to double-digits in the first three minutes, it only shrunk to single digits twice, both coming late in the first half.

After the Golden Eagles got with eight, Cesar Menjivar buried a 3-pointer to push the margin back up to 11 (31-20) with 6:22 to play Then Luke Evans hit back-to-back lay-ups to push the margin back to 13, and the Lancers carried a 45-33 lead into the locker room.

Then they went to work, scoring 17 of the first 23 points in the second half and putting La Sierra away. The largest lead of the game was the final score.

“We worked hard this week at correcting some things and made a few tweaks,” said Collins. “We really attacked their zone well and got good looks all night. I like that we have ability to move guys in and out of the lineup because of our depth. It was a good team effort all the way around.”

Menjivar also returned to the starting lineup for the first time since the season-opener, and he responded with 11 points, six assists and five rebounds. Nine of his 11 points came from beyond the arc. Evans chipped in with 10 points in 19 minutes, and Nedal Tartir added a trio of 3-pointers for nine points in 12 minutes.

The Lancers shot 51.5 percent (35-for-68) from the floor and shot 34.6 percent (9-for-26) from downtown. They forced La Sierra into 25 turnovers, turning those into 31 points.

Coleman led all players with 23 points in 25 minutes.