Box Score The Conquistador women's basketball team was coming off of a double overtime victory to open conference play and looking to pick up another win on Saturday as they hosted Neosho County. Although they were hoping for a little easier time, the Conqs once again needed more than 40 minutes to decide their game. This time they used a huge first overtime period to pull away for an 87-76 win over the Panthers, it was the third overtime game in a row for the Conqs.
Early in the game it appeared that the Conqs were going to cruise to a victory, but things changed very quickly.
Ashley Nelson opened the scoring for Dodge City as they looked very good in jumping out to an early 19-10 lead over Neosho. The Panthers were not going to go away easily. As the Conq offense stalled out, the Panthers finally got things going and they made a huge comeback before the end of the first quarter. When the horn sounded on the first ten minutes of play the Conqs managed to hold on to a 23-19 lead. In the second quarter, scoring slowed but only slightly Dodge once again was able to put a little distance between themselves and the Panthers as they pulled out to a 36-29 lead with just over four minutes remaining in the half. Neosho once again used a charge of their own to close the gap as they got the score back to 41-39 in favor of the Conqs going into half.
The third quarter was a back and forth affair between the two teams. Neosho was not going to go down easily as they actually took their first lead of the game early in the third quarter. The Conqs battled back and managed to re-take the lead at 53-49 forcing the Panthers to take a timeout with just under five minutes remaining in the period. It appeared that Dodge had finally found their key as they continued to stretch their lead in the last part of the quarter and led 63 to 55 with just ten minutes remaining. The fourth quarter was not kind to the Conqs. Their offense went cold as they only scored nine points in the quarter. At the same time, they had trouble guarding the Panthers on the dribble and were giving up offensive rebounds. Neosho ended up scoring 17 points in the quarter to pull even with Dodge at the end of regulation with each team having 72 points.
The Conqs finally fixed their defense and rebounding problems in the overtime period and Neosho was running out of gas at the same time. Neosho scored four points in the just over a minute of the overtime period to take a 76-74 lead, but that was the last lead they would see. The Conqs held the Panthers scoreless for the last 3:43 of regulation as they scored 13 straight to come away with the 87-76 victory.
Haleigh Hill led the way for the Conqs with 20 points, but she was not the only Conq to score big. Nelson with 17,
Allie Baker with 16, and
Makaela Ewing with 13 all reached double figures for Dodge City. Baker also grabbed eight rebounds and dished out five assists to lead Dodge.
"We are showing a lot of fight right now," said Coach
Zach Loll. "I wish we would be a little more sound in some areas of the game to make it easier on us, but this group is going to fight to the end and I love that characteristic of this team."
The Conqs will be back in action with a big home game on Wednesday as they will host #16 and Jayhawk East leading Butler Community College at 5:30pm.
