Refusing to be intimidated by the big-game environment for a second time this season, the Pasquotank girls basketball team gave a poised, confident performance in routing rival Northeastern 52-40 in the Northeastern Coastal Conference regular-season finale Friday night at Elizabeth City State.

The Lady Panthers, thumped by the Lady Eagles 54-41 at the same site a month ago, reaped plenty of reward for their efforts, too.

The victory, coupled with Hertford’s 51-40 upset loss to Bertie, gave Pasquotank (20-3 overall, 10-2 conference) the outright NCC regular-season title, the top seed in next week’s conference tournament and the conference’s No. 1 2A seed in the state playoffs.

The Lady Panthers, Northeastern (14-5, 9-3) and Hertford (14-7, 9-3) went into the last night of the conference season in a three-way tie for the crown.

Despite the magnitude of the win, Pasquotank coach Janie Cofield and her players were relatively calm when it ended. There were a few smiles, a couple of hugs and Cofield gave a thumbs-up sign, but that was about it. No wild celebration, no dog pile, no racing through the gym with fingers raised.

“We’ve been waiting so long to get back at them, I guess we just didn’t know how to act,” said Lady Panthers sophomore guard Mikeara Jordan, who dazzled with a 23-point outburst and some impressive ballhandling when Pasquotank was trying to kill the clock in the fourth period.

“We’re a pretty low-key team,” added Cofield, who coached the Lady Panthers to their last conference title in 2007.

In the previous loss to Northeastern, Cofield felt her players were too caught up in the hype of a battle of conference unbeatens against their biggest rivals in front of a huge crowd at ECSU. As a result, they shot a horrendous 22 percent from the floor and resembled a mediocre junior varsity team, rather than one that was a legitimate contender.

“Tonight, we were more focused and we followed the gameplan,” Cofield said. “We doubled-down on defense, made our shots and played four quarters. We were more relaxed and we came in more confident.”

Junior guard Tyanna Green, who contributed 12 points to the win, felt a workout at ECSU on Thursday night was a factor in Pasquotank’s turnaround.

“We came over here and practiced for an hour,” she said. “That really helped our shooting. It’s a bigger, wider court, too. And we like to run, so we got more comfortable.

“And this time we jumped on them.”

A 3-pointer by Green gave the Lady Panthers a 9-7 lead and they never trailed after that. Jordan pumped in six second-quarter points to help them take a 31-19 lead into the locker room.

Pasquotank maintained a double-digit lead in the third period and most of the fourth as Northeastern made perhaps its most ragged showing of the season.

The Lady Eagles shot poorly, were beaten on the boards and turned the ball over 22 times.

“Darn right it was disappointing, but it was more disappointing for the players,” said Northeastern coach Pat Thornton, whose team lost a draw with Hertford for the second seed in the NCC tournament and will now have to travel there Tuesday for a first-round game against Currituck. “They wanted it so bad they couldn’t focus and they played terrible.

“It was one of those nights where it just wasn’t meant to be. I know that’s a cliche, but there’s reasons for cliches.”

Contributing to the emotion was the fact that it was Senior Night for the Lady Eagles, the team made a pre-game presentation of a plaque to the family of a slain schoolmate and NHS was wearing pink shoe laces in honor of breast cancer awareness.

Throw in playing for the conference title and there certainly was a lot swirling around the Northeastern players.

Thornton also said that going unbeaten the first time around the conference may have caught up with the Lady Eagles, who were 3-3 in the second half.

“When you go 6-0, there’s a big bull’s eye on your back,” she said. “A lot of people forget we had only one starter back from last year (Jasmine Nixon) and maybe we weren’t quite ready to handle the pressure of that bull’s eye.”

Nixon, who struck for 27 points and 23 rebounds in the first game between the two teams, had 15 in the rematch as the Northeastern offense was unable to consistently get her the ball. Te’a Moore-Carver contributed 10 points.

But this wasn’t all about the Lady Eagles being out of kilter. Pasquotank did what it had to do.

“The last time, we were just kind of overwhelmed,” Jordan said. “But this time we stayed in our element and it helped us win.”