DODGE CITY, Kan. – Hoping to break their recent slide and pick up a win in front of their home crowd, the Dodge City Community College women's basketball team ran into another buzzsaw of a hot-shooting opponent from three as Neosho County would hand the Conquistadors a 79-39 loss at the Student Activities Center on Saturday, January 28^th.

DC3 is now 3-18 overall and 3-14 in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference while the Panthers picked up their second win of the year over Dodge City to improve to 9-12 overall and 6-11 in conference play.

Playing with four athletes making their collegiate basketball debut, the Conquistadors would struggle from the field early on and be held scoreless for the first 4:27 of the game. Neosho County would shoot an efficient 40 percent from the field in the first quarter and hit four triples to jump out to a 20-6 lead with sophomore Sada Smith scoring four of the Conqs six points.

The second quarter would look vastly different from the first as DC3 would start to hit some shots and become the aggressor, getting to the free throw line 14 times in the period. Trailing by a score of 34-12 with 3:28 left in the first half, Dodge City would score nine of the last 12 points down the stretch to pick up some momentum as the difference in the half would be the Panthers outscoring the Conqs 18-0 from beyond the arc to lead by a score of 37-21 at intermission.

Three point shooting would keep the Conqs in check in the third as DC3 would go on small runs to cut into the Neosho County lead just to be turned away from a Panther three that would kill any momentum that Dodge City could try to build on. After a triple by Beth Hawkins made the score 44-23 with 5:09 left in the third, DC3 would answer with a three from Denis Ortiz and then go on a 11-4 run to cut the lead to 13 at 49-36 with 1:46 left in the quarter and hopes to cut the Panther lead to single-digits heading into the fourth. Heavy legs would start to take effect though, as the two squads would muster only one point in the final 1:08 as Neosho County would lead 50-36 heading into the fourth.

Using a deep bench throughout, the constant shuffling of players would pay off for the Panthers in the fourth by going 11-19 from the field in the final 10 minutes as Dodge City would have foul trouble start to catch up with them. Alexis Johnson would foul out with 7:43 left in the game as Neosho would outscore the Conqs 28-3 in the period to pull away from DC3.

Dodge City would finish nine of 68 (13.2%) from the field and would be out-rebounded 61-42 including a 40-24 deficit on the defensive glass. Neosho County would make up for poor shooting from the charity stripe by hitting 11 treys and going 28-71 (39.4%) from the floor.

Smith and Johnson led the Conqs with nine points each as Smith pulled in 10 rebounds off the bench in 24 minutes of action. Christina Frick would go three of five from the field and record two steals along with seven points. The Panthers were led by 14 points from Beth Hawkins.

DC3 will head to Colby, Kansas on Wednesday, February 1^st to take on the Trojans in KJCCC action for a 6 p.m. game. Coming off of the Thanksgiving holiday break, DC3 recorded a  70-51 win over Colby earlier this year in Dodge City.