The Western Nebraska Community College and Eastern Wyoming College women’s basketball teams turned in different performances in the first day of the TEAM Chevrolet Thanksgiving Classic Friday at Cougar Palace.
The Eastern Wyoming women held a 20-point lead in the first half and then saw the lead evaporate in the second half before coming back to handle the Nebraska All-stars 74-58.
The Cougar women, were also battling back from a first half deficit. However, their shot at the buzzer to force overtime wouldn’t fall and the WNCC women suffered a 70-68 to Williston State College. The loss dropped the Cougars record to 6-3.
EWC and WNCC will be back on the court today in the final day of the TEAM Chevrolet Classic. The Lancer women will face Williston State at 1 p.m., while the Cougar women will battle the Nebraska All-stars at 5 p.m.
Both games were exciting on the evening. The Lancers used an 18-0 run in the second run to come help the Lancers to the victory. Before that run, however, the Nebraska All-stars were sticking with the Lancers.
The All-stars fought back from a 30-18 first half deficit to trail at halftime 33-29. The All-stars came back, taking the lead at 43-41 with 16 minutes to play off a Tera Schmid offensive putback. Regan Pettijohn, who played at Gering before starring four years at Iona University, had an old-fashioned 3-point play to put the All-stars up 46-43.
Both teams traded buckets left and right. Maggie Kucera tossed in a bucket with 11 minutes to play to put the All-stars up 51-49. That was when the Lancers made the 18-0 run as Jaqi Bell, who led all scorers with 26 points, scored six points and Candace Mitchell added four to put the Lancers up 67-51 over an eight minute period.
Schmid, who knocked down 3-pointers when she starred for Scottsbluff, WNCC and Chadron State, canned a trey to stop the run. Bell, though, kept her offensive game heated up as she grabbed an offensive rebound off a missed free throw to put EWC up 70-54 and the win.
EWC coach Tom Andersen said they had to fight against a talented All-star team that featured plenty of stars that starred for their area high school teams.
“There was some talent out there against us and we didn’t adjust too well to their big kids,” he said. “We struggled at times in the first part of the game. We had a little lead in the first half and let it slip away. The last 10 minutes of the game I thought we played pretty well. We passed the ball a lot better and got us some good opportunities to score. We got some steals.”
The Lancers had two players in double figures. Besides Bell’s 26 points, including 10 of 17 shooting, Mitchell tossed in 11 points. Bretney and Ashlee Hudson each finished with nine points in the win.
Pettijohn paced the All-stars with 21 points and nine rebounds, while Schmid had 15 points and seven rebounds.
The Lancers will face Williston State today at 1 p.m. and Andersen said they will need to play tough for the full 40 minutes.
“Williston will be a tough opponent for us,” he said. “We need to play a lot better and hopefully we gained a little confidence over the last 10 minutes of what we can do. We will see what we can do.”
WNCC, on the other hand, fought tooth and nail with the Lady Tetons in the second half. Williston State held a 40-31 advantage at halftime and led by as much as seven points, 54-47 with 8:10 to play on a Andi Wheeler 3-pointer.
WNCC fought back, tying the game at 54-54 on a Michelle Lighthall bucket. The Cougars never could get the lead as Williston State the lead to 62-56 on a Whitney Sundheim bucket. The Cougar women, still had opportunities to win or force overtime in the final minute.
The Cougars tied the game on back-to-back buckets by Tawny Drexler at 64-64 with 2:23 to play. After a bucket by Abbey Nassert, WNCC’s Drexler hit two free throws to knot the score at 66-66. With 1:30 to play, the Lady Tetons’ Kristin Bearstail hit a running 8-foot bank shot to put Williston up 68-66.
Both teams turned the ball over a couple of times before Amber Adams put the Lady Tetons up 70-66 with 28.7 seconds to play with two free throws. WNCC came right back as Stormye Everett hit a bucket with 8.2 seconds to play.
After a Williston State turnover, WNCC had one final attempt for the tying bucket, but Shaquilah Davis’ five-footer wouldn’t fall and the Lady Tetons earned the win.
WNCC had three players in double figures. Drexler paced the team with 20 points, while Davis had 18 and Everett at 14.
The difference in the game turned out to be shooting as Williston State was 53 percent from the field, while the Cougars were 41 percent. Sundheim paced Williston with 18 points.
All-stars 29 29 – 58
Eastern Wyoming 33 41 – 74
NEBRASKA ALL-STARS
Shanel Wambolt 4, Tera Schmid 15, April Olson 8, Maggie Kucera 8, Regan Pettijon 21, Stephanie Perez 2.
EASTERN WYOMING
Kere Bretney 9, Koel Hall 5, Jessica Martinez 7, Candace Mitchell 11, Noelle Jones 3, Danielle Brown 4, Ashlee Hudson 9, Jaqi Bell 26.
Three-Pointers: All-stars 2 (Schmid 2), EWC 2 (Martinez, Jones).
Williston State 40 30 -- 70
Western Nebraska 31 37 -- 68
WILLISTON STATE
Andi Wheeler 5, Abby Nasset 5, Whitney Sundheim 18, Kristin Bearstail 17, Molly Wold 4, Amber Adams 10, Christine Miller 11.
WESTERN NEBRASKA
Michelle Lighthall 6, SeLina Ysac 5, Shaquilah Davis 18, Stormye Everett 14, Tawny Drexler 20, Caley Fisher 5.
Three-pointers: WNCC 2 (Davis, Fisher), Williston 6 (Bearstail 3, Sundheim 2, Wheeler 1).
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