INDEPENDENCE, Kan. – The Dodge City Community College women's basketball team would continue their offensive struggles and shoot just 26.2 percent from the field in a 52-49 loss at the hands of Independence Community College in Kansas Jayhawk Community College action on Saturday, January 7.

DC3 is now 3-12 overall and 3-8 in conference play while the Pirates improved to 7-8 overall and 4-7 in conference play.

Early struggles would carry over from Wednesday night's loss to Allen as the Conquistadors would start by hitting just one of their first 12 shots. After taking a 4-3 lead in the opening two minutes of the game, Independence would go on a 7-0 run to take a 10-4 lead before a Jakyia Chambers bucket in the paint would cut the lead to 10-6. The Conqs would then cut the lead to one at the end of the first quarter on an Alexus Johnson trey to put the score at 10-9.

Independence would open up the second stanza on a 7-0 run as DC3 would continue their shooting woes forcing a Dodge City timeout with 6:16 left in the quarter. As it would turn out, the timeout would do exactly as needed to kill the Pirate momentum that had been built, as the Conquistadors would outscore Independence 11-5 down the stretch to pull back within two at 22-20 heading into the locker room.

A better start to the third quarter would see Dodge City tie things at 25 apiece with 6:54 remaining in the period and take a 28-27 lead on a Baily Shelor triple. With the tide starting to turn, the Pirates would go back to what had been working for a majority of the game as a quick 4-0 run would allow them to re-take the lead with DC3 fighting to keep things close. Independence would push their lead back out to five with time winding down before Dasia Johnson would nail a three with five seconds remaining in the quarter to put the score at 39-37 heading into the final 10 minutes of action.

Independence would go on a 9-3 run to open up the fourth and hold onto a 48-40 lead with 5:05 remaining when two free throws by Dasia Johnson would spark a 9-2 run for the Conquistadors to close within one at 50-49 with 58 seconds left in regulation. The Pirates would hit one of two free throws after being fouled before a DC3 turnover would once again give Independence the ball. Indy would again hit only one of two shots from the charity stripe, but the Conquistadors would miss an open three point attempt and not get a chance at a second attempt.

Dodge City would shoot just 16-61 (26.2%) from the field despite hitting on 37.5 percent (6-16 three-point attempts). The Conqs would go 11-14 from the charity stripe while scoring 15 points off of 18 Independence turnovers.

Alexus Johnson would lead all scorers with 18 points and pull in six rebounds while Dasia Johnson netted 11 points and had six rebounds of her own. Taylor Nichols led the Conqs with seven rebounds while Kyra Fennell had two blocks to move into a tie for seventh all-time at DC3 in blocks with Elena Diaz who played from 2000-02.

A stiff test awaits the Conquistadors who will travel to conference leader and No. 6 Nationally-ranked Seward County Community College on Wednesday, January 11th for a 6 p.m. contest. The Saints are a perfect 14-0 and 10-0 in the KJCCC heading into a contest against Colby on Saturday evening.