There are big victories and then there are small victories. For Topeka native and Pittsburg State senior guard Anna Nimz, every time she steps on the floor against her former Lady Blues teammates she seems to register those small victories.

“Everybody from Topeka that we seem to had recruited or was here seems to play well against us,” said Ron McHenry, head coach of the Lady Blues. “Their system is set up to where Anna does a good job down there.”

Nimz played for Washburn her freshman year along with seniors Brooke Ubelaker, Megan Sullivan, Holly Henrichs and Cindy Keeley. After averaging only 4.3 minutes and 2.3 points in her first year she decided to transfer to Dodge City Community College to receive more playing time.

“She is a good player, there is no doubt about it,” said McHenry. “We thought she was a good player when she was here. But it just worked out that she was going to transfer to play some more, earlier in her career.”

But Nimz wouldn’t be in Dodge City for long, transferring to Pittsburg her junior year. Now everytime the former Lady Blue meets up with her long lost teammates she seems to take her game to the next level and Saturday night was no different.

In perhaps the last match up of her career with her former team, Nimz went 3-of-4 from the field and scored 7 points in the Gorillas defeat 73-56.

“Anna has had a great season so far and a great career at Pitt,” said Keeley, senior guard. “She is a hard worker. She always seems to get her head up when she plays against us.”

Nimz is 0-4 against the Lady Blues in her career but has averaged 9.5 points per game. Sullivan, senior forward, explains even though Nimz may think of this game as something bigger than a regular season match up, the Lady Blues just go out and play.

“I know she probably thinks about it because she did come from here and she played with all of us,” said Sullivan. “We’re all really good friends with her but we just go out to play and go out to win. We don’t really think about who’s on the team.”

It looked like Nimz and the Gorillas were looking to upset the Lady Blues after the first half trailing 27-24. But the Lady Blues got the best of the Gorillas in the second half out scoring them 46-32 and rolling to a 73-56 victory.

The win was the second straight for the Lady Blues after beating Missouri Southern 81-50, Wednesday. The Lady Blues dominated the first half, holding a 24-point lead at half time.

“A lot of it was just trying to bounce back from that lost,” said Sullivan. “We knew we had to come out and play hard after a loss like that. We wanted to get it back because we can’t afford to lose any more games now. So we were all playing really well in the first half. Second half was a little different story but it worked out.”

The Lady Blues hit 7-of-14 3-pointers in the first half and held Missouri Southern to just 20 points.

“That is a very talented Southern group,” said McHenry. “I’m glad to get them out of the way here early because they have some tough match ups out there. We played really clean that first half and got in transition. We’re a much better team when we’re in transition. Second half, it’s not the best start we’ve ever had to a second half. Sometimes it’s hard mentally to play when you’re ahead like that.”