MOWEAQUA - Neoga shot its way out off the game in the first half against Central A&M on Monday.

The Indians were 3-of-35 from the floor after two quarters and many of the shots were missed layups and putbacks. Given Negoa's decisive advantage in the paint with its size, the point-blank misses were more than frustrating for its coach.

"The bunnies are what killed us," Neoga coach Kevin Haarman said. "At the start of the season, we told the girls we're going to have to finish and we didn't finish."

While the Indians (0-1) struggled with their shooting, Central A&M settled into the first game of the sea-son nicely. The Raiders used 9-of-20 shooting to cruise into halftime up 26-9 and held off Neoga 47-41 for the win.

"Overall, we haven't really played together, but by the end I started to see some chemistry coming to-gether," senior Brittany Jackson said.

The 17-point halftime lead didn't hide A&M's defensive woes from Raiders' coach Brianna Morrow. Be-cause of Neoga's size, Morrow was forced into playing zone defense, which is something she rarely employs. The results weren't pretty.

"Defensively, it was pretty scary," Morrow said. "We have a lot, A LOT of work to do defensively.

"Especially when we got tired, we played terrible defense."

Jackson noticed the defense's laziness, especially late in the game when Neoga finally started hitting shots. After a lopsided first half, the Indians outscored the Raiders 31-21, including 16-9 in the fourth quarter.

"I'm very out of shape right now," said Jackson, who finished with 16 points, seven rebounds, five steals and four blocks. "Defense is this team's man focus, so we'll be conditioning to correct that."

Well after the game, Haarman still wasn't sure why his team shot so poorly. He offered a few guesses, one being the team's first game of the season. The other reason was being intimidated by a traditionally suc-cessful A&M team.

"After they realized that we can play, they started getting confidence," Haarman said. "I don't know. All I know is that it was frustrating."

The Indians were led in scoring by 6-foot sophomore Erica Hotze, who finished with 13 points. Molly Tarter finished with 11.

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