NATCHITOCHES – For the first seven-plus minutes Saturday, it appeared the Northwestern State women's basketball team was going to put its fans through the ringer again.
 
The final 33 minutes at Prather Coliseum, however, were a different story. Northwestern State shook off a slow offensive start and used a career-high scoring day from senior guard Chelsea Rogers to roll past longtime rival McNeese State, 75-54, and maintain their hold on the Southland Conference lead.
 
Rogers knocked down 4 of 7 3-pointers en route to a 27-point performance, setting the tone for the Lady Demons, who built a 12-point halftime lead by hitting 53.8 percent of their shots.
 
"Chelsea is shooting the ball extremely well," third-year co-head coach Brooke Stoehr said. "I didn't know she had 27 until I saw the stat line at the end of the game. That's indicative of who she is. She just quietly goes about her business, and she quietly had 27 today."
 
Northwestern State (12-7, 7-1 Southland) clamped down on McNeese State's high-scoring backcourt of Allison Baggett and Jayln Johnson. The pair averaged a combined 34.3 points per game in Southland play entering Saturday.
 
It led to NSU's largest margin of victory against McNeese since a 28-point victory on Jan. 24, 2008.
 
The Lady Demons held the pair to a combined 14 points on 3-for-16 shooting from the field, keeping the Cowgirls (10-8, 3-4) from building any offensive continuity.
 
NSU held the Cowgirls to 29.1-percent shooting (16-for-55) and limited McNeese to a 3-for-22 effort beyond the 3-point line (13.6 percent).
 
Talisa Boyd, a Natchitoches Central High School product, led McNeese with 14 points and 14 rebounds.
 
"Our team executed a scouting report defensively as well as they have in a long time," Stoehr said. "Some of that speaks to their maturity, as we go along in the season, of being able to handle a scouting report and translate it on the floor. We did a really, really nice job of finding shooters, stopping the ball in transition and not allowing them to play at the tempo and pace they wanted to."
 
After McNeese scored the game's first six points, Rogers buried her first 3 of the game. Fellow senior Presley Owens (12 points, six rebounds) then scored the next six NSU points, pulling the Lady Demons within one.
 
A layup by freshman Sami Thomas at the 12:28 mark gave NSU its first lead of the game – one it did not relinquish in the game's final 32-plus minutes.
 
Janelle Perez gave NSU its third double-figure scorer of the game, tallying 14 points after scoring 21-plus points in four straight games. Perez also notched her fourth game this season of at least five assists and no turnovers, hitting those numbers on the mark.
 
"We're preparing for February and March," Stoehr said. "We've got to continue to get better. We hadn't played 40 minutes of really complete basketball, and I thought today was close to that. I want this team to continue to focus on getting better so we are playing are best basketball in March."
 
The Lady Demons start a two-game Southland Conference road trip Wednesday with a 7 p.m. matchup at Central Arkansas. NSU concludes the road swing Jan. 31 at Southeastern Louisiana.