Junior guard Leslie Cook tallied 27 points to lead High Point over UNC Asheville, 100-89 in the first round of the 2006 Advance Auto Parts Big South Women's Basketball Tournament. The Panthers advance to the semi-final round where they will face Coastal Carolina.

Cook connected on 8-of-11 from the field to lead a quartet of Panthers in double figures. The 2006 Big South Player of the Year, Katie O'Dell, scored 17 points and pulled down 10 rebounds for her sixth double-double of the season. Freshmen Caitlin Thys and Ayonna Thompson added 16 points each. Cook, Thys and Thompson all had career-highs.

The Bulldogs were led by First Team All-Conference selection, Kristal Hood, who scored a career-high 33 points on 11-of-22 from the field and 10-of-11 from the charity stripe. Ashton Barton also had a career high with 23 points while Amanda Elder added 10.

High Point opened the game strong, to take an early 15-6 run that was capped by a four-point play by Cook. The Panthers continued to control much of the first half, shooting 80-percent from behind the arc in the opening 12 minutes of the game. Thompson connected on back-to-back three pointers to give High Point its largest lead of the game (43-14) at the 8:14 mark. Asheville would not go away and chiseled into the lead by going on an 18-4 run to close out the half. Hood sparked the run with a lay-up 8:02. High Point took a 12 point lead into the break.

Coming out of the break the Panthers jumped out early with another four point play from Cook to give High Point a 17 point advantage three minutes into the half. The Bulldogs battled back over the next minutes and pulled within seven with 1:24 remaining in the game. HPU pulled ahead by 10 before Barton hit a three pointer to again pull the Bulldogs within seven with 53 seconds remaining. In the final minute High Point hit 14-of-16 free throws to seal the victory.

"We started off pretty hot," said High Point University head coach Tooey Loy. "I think that might have been the best 10 minutes of shooting I've ever seen. It was like we just couldn't miss. I thought we came out with a lot of intensity and really jumped on them early. Give them credit though because they made a run at us later in the half. I felt like we ran our offense extremely well and did a good job of getting defensive stops when we needed to.Ã???????????

The Panthers shot 48-percent from the field as a team including 47-percent from behind the arc on 10-of-21. Asheville held the slight advantage on the boards, out-rebounding HPU, 34-33. Asheville also topped High Point in points in the paint 24-14 while the Panthers scored 20 points off turnovers to Asheville's 9.

High Point will return to action on Friday in the semi-final round of the 2006 Advance Auto Parts Big South Conference Tournament where they will face #3 seed Coastal Carolina. Game time is set for 8:30 p.m. in the Vines Center on the campus of Liberty University.

GAME NOTES
-  189 combined points is a Big South Conference Tournament record
-> High Point's 100 points sets a new quarterfinal round record and matches the  Big South Conference Tournament record (Radford, 1988)
->  First time Asheville has given up 100 points since Vanderbilt scored 107 in 2000. Most points given up under Coach Blose
->  High Point's 34 free throws made set a tournament record, the previous record was 31 set by UNC Greensboro and Radford, 1993 and 1994, respectively.
->  Combined free throws of 58 breaks the previous record of 43 set in 1993 by Radford and Liberty.
   Combined free throw attempts of 66 breaks the previous record of 59 set twice, the last in 1993 by Radford and Liberty.