The Neosho County Community College women's basketball team fended off every run the Colby Community College Trojans made to open the 2018 portion of the schedule with a 79-68 victory.

The Panthers scored the first five points, but Colby responded with a spurt of its own.

However, every time the visitors made a run, Neosho County responded with one of their own.

"I told the girls, anytime you begin the game with the lead and finish with the lead, because basketball is such a momentum sport, it's hard to do," Coach JJ Davis said. "Every time they made a run, we answered."

The teams swapped the lead four times – all coming in the first half of the contest.

One of the best runs by Neosho County came late in the second quarter.

The Panthers saw their lead shrink to 25-22 with five and a half minutes remaining in the half, but NCCC battled back and ended the half on a 16-6 spurt to take a 41-28 lead into the locker room.

"We were really passing the ball well," Davis said. "We had the most amount of assists we've had in the first half. Then we came back out in the third quarter, and we did what we used to do."

Colby had one more run in the second half, cutting the Panther lead to three with five minutes to go in the game, but that proved to be as close as the Trojans came the remainder of the game.

"I think our sophomores came in and did their job," Davis said. "I saw that scared look again from the freshmen in their first game back. It needs to go away, and it will."

Freshman forward Erica Birch led the Panthers with 15 points, while sophomore Beth Hawkins and freshman Alexis Casher added 12 points each. In all, NCCC had six players score six or more points in the victory.

"We've been preaching the last 10 days, look, it's got to be a 'we' thing," Davis said. "The first half was how we want to play. The second half, we got a little tense and a little nervous. They did what they were supposed to do and fought out of that."

Neosho County (6-8 overall and 3-7 in the KJCCC) heads to Garden City (8-6 and 5-5) on Saturday for a 2 pm tipoff.

"Colby was ahead of us. We then play Garden who is ahead of them. Then we play Butler, who is ahead of them," Davis explained. "This is wanted. This is what we've been building for."