PATERSON, NJ - The Northampton Women's Basketball team suffered their first setback of the season on Saturday afternoon with a 62-56 loss to Passaic County Community College at the Panthers Fieldhouse.

The Spartans found themselves down 22-13 after a slow start at the end of the first quarter but were able to claw back in the second quarter to take a 34-30 lead into halftime. Both the Panthers and Spartans went back forth in the second half with the score knotted at 49-49 at the end of the third quarter. With 3:30 remaining in the contest, the Panthers extended their lead to 57-52, and the Spartans were unable to close the gap, falling just short.

"Rough loss today," explained Spartans Head Coach Carly Gallagher, "We struggled behind the arc today and that hurt us at the end. I felt we battled and put ourselves in a good position going into the half after being down double digits early, but things just didn't go our way at the end. We will be fine, we can fix what we need to fix and learn from this."

Sophomore guard Layla Sweatte (Allentown, PA/William Allen) led the Spartan offense with 17 points, 3 rebounds and 4 steals and Freshman center Nia Brown (Bethlehem, PA/Executive Charter) scored 12 points and grabbed 13 rebounds for her second consecutive double-double. Freshman Neoshe Perez (Bath, PA/Executive Charter) scored 9 points with 4 rebounds and was 3-4 from the foul line. Guard Abymarie Colon (Easton, PA/Wilson) scored 5 points with 6 rebounds while dishing out 3 assists and 1 steal. The Spartans shot 42% from the floor (23-54) but were 0-7 from 3 point range. The Spartans were 10-18 from the charity stripe.

Northampton slips to 1-1 overall and 1-1 in Region 19.

Passaic improves to 1-1 overall and 1-1 in the Region.

The Spartans are back on the floor on Tuesday, November 11th when they travel to Paramus, NJ to take on Bergen Community College at 5pm at the Bulldogs Sports Arena.