The Cottey College Comets beat the St. Louis Community College-Florissant Valley Norsewomen 69-49 Saturday to win the first round of the Region XVI playoffs.

The win gave Cottey a 16-7 record for the season and earned them the right to play Region XVI's number two ranked St. Louis Community College-Meramec at 7:30 p.m. Friday in St. Louis. The winner of that game will play the winner of the 5:30 p.m. game between Region XVI's number one ranked Penn Valley Community College and North Central Missouri College in the championship game at 3 p.m. Saturday, March 1.

Sixteen wins and seven losses is a new school record, Cottey head coach Dave Ketterman said after Saturday's game.

"This team came to play every game," Ketterman said.

He said that they have three sophomores, Dominica Sena, Melissa Hedges and Liz Wagoner, on the team who will be missed next year.

"The sophomores have been a big part of the 30-15 record over the last two years, That is more wins in two seasons than any other two seasons," Ketterman said.

"That's a credit to those kids and they way they worked and played. Those three will be missed," he said.

The Comets got off to a quick 9-0 start, before the winless Norsewomen got their first five points. A quick eight, unanswered points by the Comets gave them a 17-5 lead less than half way through the first period. Cottey extended their lead to 15 points at 31-26 with 2:20 left. The Norsewomen held Cottey scoreless for the rest of the period and scored the last five points to cut Cottey's lead to 31-21.

The Norsewomen opened the second half with five points, cutting Cottey's lead to 31-26 and appeared to put themselves back into the game until Cottey freshman Brittany Smith outscored the Norsewomen 12-6 to put Cottey ahead 43-31, to which the Comets added 15 unanswered points for a commanding 58-31 lead with a little over 7 minutes left. The Comets traded baskets with the Norsewomen for the rest of the game to win 69-49.

Cottey freshman Brittany Smith led both teams with 24 points including five treys and going 3-4 from the charity stripe, followed by Jessica Roberts with 14 points, Meleah Painter with ten points including two treys and five assists, Liz Wagoner with eight points, Molly Frick with seven points and Melissa Hedges with three points.

Samantha Wideman and Chanel Newell led the scoring for the Norsewomen with 11 points each, including three treys by Wideman, followed by Nita Harris with ten points, Deanna Cunigan with nine points, Menka Banipal with five points and Alicia Long with three points.