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What he didn't know was that it would take a full quarter for his team to come to terms with that pace.

Northern raced out to a 17-5 lead after one quarter and had the Panthers playing catch up early in their 69-45 victory Monday night.

"What this game came down to was the speed of the game," Newhouse said. "The speed of the game was quick, its a different style of basketball but once we adjusted to the speed of the game we were able to come up with some opportunities."

The Panthers did make some nice adjustments in the second and reeled off their own 12-5 run midway through the quarter to get themselves back in the game.

Dani Schoenherr handled the tough Northern press and helped to control the flow of the game as the Panthers clawed their way back to go into halftime only trailing, 30- 26.

But the Vikings showed that they could make adjustments as well.

In the third, Northern came out in their patented full court press led by Chaniese Turner, who helped to take over the game as the Vikings went on a 17-0 run in the last four minutes of the quarter to blow the contest wide open.

"Chaniese is a good kid. She works hard," Northern coach Leteia Hughley said. "She just does whatever it takes to win a game. If that means going to the hole, playing defense; whatever it takes she'll do it for you."

Turner was the leading scorer in the game with 22.

One of the biggest factors in the huge third quarter run was the Lady Vikings dominance of the offensive boards.

"We just gave up too many second shots," Newhouse said. "They got a lot of and-ones and that just was the difference."

Coach Hughley pointed to their rebounding edge as well, as it was the focus of her halftime speech to her team.

"At halftime we told the girls that they were getting pushed under the basket and it was allowing West to get easy rebounds," Hughley explained. "We told them the same thing we tell them at practice, get wide on your base and hold your ground.

"Don't get pushed under the basket and I think they did a great job of that."

In the fourth it was more of the same as Northern continued to harass any comeback try by West with their press, holding the Panthers to seven points for the quarter and bringing the Lady Panthers season to an end.

The Panthers were led by Bridget Miller who scored 12 points and Erin Brown and Schoenherr each chipped in seven in the losing effort.