NAMPA, Idaho – The Northwest Nazarene women's basketball team has seven freshmen, which means there will be some bumps this season.

Based on how they played Friday those bumps may be fewer than would be expected.

The Nighthawks rolled to an 87-64 victory against Colorado Christian in the Fairfield Inn Crossover Challenge at Johnson Sports Center.

"I think we are ahead of where we thought we'd be," NNU senior Marina Valles said. "The coaches have already told us that we are ahead of where they expected us to be and I think that's good, but we should keep improving as well."

Valles scored 17 points, had four assists, four rebounds and three steals. Jordan Pinson added 17 points, Erin Jenkins had 16 points and six rebounds and Avery Albrecht had 11 points, six rebounds and five assists.

With four of their five returners putting up big offensive nights it took the pressure off of the younger players in their home debut.

"To play the style we want to we want to spread out the scoring so we are harder to defend," NNU coach Steve Steele said. "I thought both point guards were tremendous tonight. We have two kids (Valles and Pinson) who could be starters at a lot of other places in the conference and they were both really good tonight. When you have a young team, it helps when the point guards have a good night."

The Nighthawks (2-1 overall) steadily pulled away from the Cougars (0-3) throughout the game, thanks to 55.6-percent shooting from the field despite making just 6-of-21 from beyond the arc.

"Just like last year, we have a ton of depth and a ton of talent," Pinson said. "It is the same this year and it puts a lot of pressure on the other teams.

"It's obviously going to be much different than last year where we had a bunch of seniors with a ton of experience, but the freshmen listen really well and they work really hard which makes it a lot easier than you'd think having that many freshmen."

The Nighthawks held the Cougars to 32.1-percent shooting (18-of-56) and 10.5 percent (2-of-19) from behind the arc. If it wasn't for Colorado Christian's 26 made free throws, the blowout would have been even worse.

"It's always encouraging to win by 20 or whatever," Steele said. "We know there are going to be bumps because we are so young. It is going to take us longer to make adjustments and unfortunately you have to play games to learn how to make those adjustments.

"As the year goes on, I do feel optimistic that we are going to continue to improve quickly."

In the earlier game Friday, Westminster (3-0) defeated Central Washington 70-60.

The tournament continues Saturday as Central Washington (1-2) plays Colorado Christian at 2 p.m. and NNU plays Westminster at 6 p.m.

"Ellie Logan in her first game doing scout did a really good job," Steele said of his new assistant coach. "Elpidia (Allen) did a good job with the subbing rotation despite being in foul trouble."