HPU women fend off Vermont

HIGH POINT – High Point University started fast and finished strong.

The Panthers built a double-digit lead within the first five minutes of the game, lost it but recovered well down the stretch to beat Vermont 71-65 in nonconference women’s basketball Wednesday in the Qubein Center.

“That was a great win for us,” High Point coach Chelsea Banbury said. “Vermont’s a great team and they played really well. They have a lot of good players, and I think our girls responded really well.

“Coming out from the jump and getting a good lead on them, doing a good job after losing Lexi in the last game is a big deal for us. So I’m really proud of how we came out in that first quarter.”

Aaliyah Collins had another career game – scoring 29 points on 12-of-18 shooting, eclipsing her high of 27 set Sunday against East Carolina. She also had three assists and two steals.

Macy Spencer added 23 points – just one off her career-best of 24 earlier this month against Wofford – while Chana Paxixe provided a spark of seven points and seven rebounds. Brecken Snotherly added five points and five rebounds.

The Panthers were without graduate guard Lexi Fleming, a 1,000-point scorer while at Bowling Green. She suffered a knee injury early in Sunday’s game and was on the bench Wednesday with a brace but not dressed out.

Collins and Spencer provided a big scoring boost – especially early, combining to score all their team’s 24 points in the first quarter. Collins scored 13 of her team’s 20 points in the fourth.

“Honestly, I’m kind of hard on myself,” said Collins, a graduate guard. “I feel like I took a lot of bad shots while I did, I guess, have a career night. But moving on, teams definitely are going to start collapsing on me.

“So I have to be able to start kicking it out more often. But it’s good. The season is just starting off and we’ve got a long year ahead of us. This is a great win for us.”

High Point – 5-0 for the first time since 1996-97 – pushed its lead to 14 late in the first. But it cooled in the second while the Catamounts (4-1), led by 6-foot-2 forward Nikola Priede and guard Jadyn Weltz each with nine points, rallied.

Vermont pulled within two before the Panthers took a 38-34 lead into halftime. The difference disappeared in the second half as the Catamounts evened the score twice in the third and again with nine minutes left in the game.

But High Point, which until the last couple games had been starting slow, made key plays to keep fending off Vermont.

The Panthers, keyed by back-to-back layups by Collins and a three-point play by Paxixe, pushed their lead back to five with 7:44 left. Vermont pulled within three with four minutes left, but High Point led by eight with two minutes left when Collins scored following an offensive rebound by Dom Nesland.

“We are starting the game off a lot better,” said Collins, who kept applying pressure by driving to the basket. “That was one of our biggest things. We used to just be a second half team. But we’ve started off a lot better, especially the last two games. So it’s just really carrying it over, keeping that the whole game.”

High Point will play its next three on the road – first visiting Houston on Sunday, then playing Nov. 28-29 in the Big Easy New Orleans Classic against Louisiana and the College of Charleston.

A sixth win to start the season would put this year’s Panthers among the old AIAW teams of the 1970s and early 1980s for which the records are sometimes incomplete.

“I am excited,” Banbury said. “I think it’s a great opportunity for us to go in and see how we match up against a bigger school, bigger athletes. Ultimately, that’s what we wanted to do with our scheduling.

“We want to compete and we want to do well in the Big South, but our goal is to go to the NCAA Tournament. And I don’t want the NCAA Tournament to be the first time we face a team like that.

“I do think we’re getting better every single game. And we’re making progress and our players are figuring out ways to win. We’ve had a pretty tough stretch the last 10 days, and they’ve responded really well.”

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