The Cougars put four players in double figures, led by Francisco Cruz with 23 and Geddes Robinson with 20. Geoffrey Firmin pitched in 17 points, while Saul Torres had 11 points.
WNCC, 7-1, will face Central Community College-Columbus today in the final day of the Classic at 7 p.m. Central-Columbus escaped with an 88-87 win over Eastern Wyoming College. The Lancers will battle Gillette College at 4:30 p.m. at Cougar Palace.
WNCC coach Russ Beck said his team started slow, but out-scored the Pronghorns 26-15 in the final 10 minutes of the first half in holding a 50-39 halftime advantage.
“The first 10 minutes of the first half we were a little stagnant and our communication wasn’t great,” he said. “Gillette is very athletic and they were getting to the paint, and when you get to the paint you become a player where you can pass or score. We made some adjustments going into a zone. Gillette started to settle in for some outside shots. Later in the second half, they started hitting some threes, but we wanted them to take some 3-point shots and to disallow touches or penetration into the paint.”
Both teams were in a tussle the first 10 minutes of the game. Saul Torres came up big for the Cougars early, netting six early points. Gillette held a five-point, 33-28 lead with 7:26 to play in the opening quarter. That was when Cruz and Robinson went to work in scoring 20 of the next 22 points for the Cougars for the 11-point halftime margin.
Cruz had 17 points at intermission while Robinson had 16 points. In the second half, the Cougars got contributions from other players, including Torres nailing a huge 3-pointer early in the half, as well as Geoffrey Firmin scoring eight points. Brylle Kamen also came up big, scoring five straight points to put WNCC up 75-63 with 6:34 left.
Beck said he was pleased with the effort that the players had on the court.
“In order to be a really good team, this team needs to be really balanced,” he said. “I thought Saul Torres came out and gave us great energy from the get-go. He hit some shots early. I thought Ritchie Mundende came in and did a really good job in rebounding the ball. He didn’t try to force the issue. I liked all the kids that stepped in and how they contributed tonight.”
The one thing that concerned Beck was the teams free throws shooting down the stretch. WNCC held a 77-71 lead with 4:30 left in the game and went scoreless for the next four minutes, missing several free throws. Cruz finally broke the scoring ice for the Cougars nailing one of two free throws with 23.7 seconds remaining. Torres then sealed the game with two charity tosses with 12.4 seconds to play.
WNCC was just 24 of 39 from the free throw line on the night compared to 9 of 15 for the Pronghorns. The Cougars out-rebounded Gillette 47-39.
Beck said his team will need to be ready for the challenges a good Central-Columbus team will present today in the final day of the Thanksgiving Classic.
“All we know about Central is what we watched today against Eastern Wyoming, and they were able to come with a win against a tough, hard-nosed Eastern Wyoming team,” he said. “We will have our hands full with them. They will play hard and they will play a lot of motion. We have to be physical and rebound the ball and hit free throws.”
Gillette (6-2) 39 37 – 76
WNCC (7-1) 50 30 – 80
GILLETTE COLLEGE
Darnell Maze 2, Nik Mandic 10, Patrick Webb 2, Brean Tennant 11, DeJuan Wright 23, Ryan Aaron 19, Lovell Cook 9.
WNCC
Al-Akeem Watson 2, Geddes Robinson 20, Saul Torres 11, Geoffrey Firmin 17, O’Rion Hughes 2, Francisco Cruz 23, Brylle Kamen 5.
Central-Columbus holds off EWC 88-87
The Eastern Wyoming College Lancers missed on a last second lay-up to fall to the Central Community College-Columbus Raiders 88-87 in the first game of the Thanksgiving Classic at Cougar Palace.
EWC coach Casey Jones said this is a tough loss to swallow, especially since the Lancers trailed once by 11 points in the first half to hold a 10-point lead in the second half.
“We got a lay-up to win it from a guy I haven’t seen miss in years,” Jones said. “I told the guys I don’t know if we are ready to win yet because we have a long ways to go to get better. We can’t rely on a lay-up to win 89-88, that is way too many point allowed by the other team. It looked like that was the reason we lost, but we just allowed them to score too many points. It should have never been that close.”
Central coach Damon Vogt said his squad has played a tough schedule so far and they kept battling, never giving up.
“I picked up that technical foul, which put them up by 10, and I brought my boys into the huddle. We made an adjustment at halftime because there was so many fouls in the first half that you couldn’t get into a rhythm offensively. I told them at halftime that we were going to play straight up defense and keep our hands off and we played off of them a little bit. We didn’t put them in the bonus in the second half and that allowed them to shoot the ball because we weren’t playing tight.
“After the technical, I brought them in the huddle and told them let’s start playing our regular style and get up in their face and play them tough. We did not give up any 3-point shots the rest of the way.”
Jones was happy with the way his team battled back.
“It is nice to see that we can come back, but it is not nice to see that we can’t hold a lead,” he said. “That just sums up our year so far from practice when we started with 13 freshmen and two sophomores. We are just up and down, up and down. I really think we can be pretty good as soon as our freshmen grow up a little bit. “
Central-Columbus held a 39-28 advantage with five minutes left in the first half. The Lancers came storming back to slice the deficit to 45-43 on a bucket and two free throws by Zach Young. EWC kept hitting on all cylinders early in the second half as Lance Korell nailed two 3-pointers and pushed the lead to 10 points with 11:39 left to play.
Central-Columbus came storming back, tying the game at 77-77. Moments later, CCC retook the lead at 81-80 with 4:40 to play. The Raiders pushed the lead to 85-80 with two minutes to play. EWC bounced back, tying the game at 85-85 on a Kevin Brown 3-pointer and a Matt Schackow driving lay-up.
The Raiders’ Taylor Murren came back down to put Central-Columbus up 88-85 with 1:05 to play. EWC’s Brown converted a bucket and missed a free throw that would have tied it. With 7.4 seconds left, the Lancers got a stop on the defensive side and then missed on the wide-open lay-up to win the game.
EWC was led by Korell’s 17 points followed by Kevin Brown with 14, Winston Harris with 13 and Darius Gordon with 12. Central was paced by Donald Jones’ 18 points followed by Murren’s 15 and Shavontae Samuels with 12.
EWC (1-6) 43 44 – 87
CCC-Columbus
Jacob Woslager 12, Taylor Murren 15, Steville Burns 7, Donald Jones 18, Shavontae Samuels 12, Erfan Momeni 4, Jay Battle 5, Lorenzo Wilson 5, Devontai Dotson 5.
EWC
Lashad Stuckey 7, Lance Korell 17, Zach Young 8, Darius Gordon 12, Cameron Richardson 6, Matt Schackow 2, T.K. Kairys 6, Kevin Brown 14, Winston Harris 13, Ivan Simic 2.
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