The High Point University women's basketball team held on tonight to defeat local rival Elon, 54-51. HPU improves to 3-3 on the season while the Phoenix fall to 4-4.

Junior Amber Manuel led the charge for the Panthers with 12 points. Candyce Sellars set a new career high, pulling down 11 boards as the Panthers outrebounded the Phoenix 40-35.

For Elon, Amber Wall and Nikko King each recorded double-doubles tonight to lead the Phoenix. Wall had 13 points and 10 rebounds while King had 10 points and pulled down 13 boards.

High Point came out strong in the first half fueled by back-to-back three pointers from Leslie Cook to start the game. The Panthers went up by 10 (16-6) at the 13:58 mark when Katie Ralls nailed a three pointer. HPU dominated the first half, going 6-of-10 from outside the arc to take a 34-27 lead into the break.

Coming out of the intermission Elon went on a 7-2 run to cut the lead to four with a lay-up from King. The Panthers again took control to take a nine point lead at 10:56 off a three pointer from Sellars. Elon wouldn't go away and battled back over the next five minutes to cut the HPU lead to one (47-48) with a jumper from Shashonna Moore. Elon's Wall tied the game (51-51) at 4:17 with a layup. Only one more basket would be scored in the game when Sellars hit the game winning with 2:58 remaining.

"Both teams played solid defense tonight," said High Point University head coach Tooey Loy. "Have to give it to Elon, they really shut us down in the last part of the second half, but luckily our defense was playing them just as strongly. This is an old rivalry and even though we're not in the same conference anymore, it's still a big game on both our schedules."

With tonight's win High Point evens the all-time series record at 36-36.

The Panthers will return to the court on Sunday, Dec. 10 when they host Gardner-Webb. Game time is set for 2 p.m.