The Western Nebraska Community College women’s basketball team put three players in double figures in rolling to their 13th win of the season in topping Colby Community College 74-55 in the first day of the Lady Cougar Holiday Classic Thursday at Cougar Palace. Thais Pinto came off the bench to score 13 points on 6 of 10 shooting in the win. Also finishing with double digits for the No. 17 Lady Cougars were Samantha Sanders and Kyra Peterson with 11 points each.
The Cougars will try to finish the first semester on Friday in the second day of the Holiday Classic as they will face Trinidad State Junior College at 7 p.m. Colby will take on Nebraska School of Technical Agriculture-Curtis at 5 p.m.
WNCC coach Dave Harnish said his team played average.
“We played decent and we weren’t very patient all night long,” he said. “We didn’t have patience offensively and make good decisions. We played in spurts again. We got up pretty good in the first half and had a good halftime lead. I thought we did a better job jumping up to a big lead early in the second half and then we let them cut the lead to 12 points. We didn’t play 40 minutes tonight.”
What the Cougars did, however, flashed their depth all night. The Cougars out-scored the Trojans off the bench 34-24. Pinto and Peterson were the big guns for the Cougars coming off the bench. Peterson led the team with three 3-pointers on 4-of-6 shooting from the field.
“We played a lot of kids tonight, which was nice. That shows that we have good balance,” Harnish said. “It was nice to see Kyra hit some shots because she has been struggling a little bit from the field. It was nice to see her hit some threes. Our defense was wasn’t great. Our offense was great. It was a tough week with finals, but we got through it and.”WNCC and Colby traded buckets early in the game until WNCC went on a 10-0 run to open up a 11-8 lead to 21-8 on a Leona Garrett bucket. The Cougars led 40-23 at halftime after Peterson hit a shot at the buzzer after getting an offensive rebound.
WNCC kept excelling early in the second half, jumping out to a 46-28 lead on two Samantha Sanders free throws. Colby fought back, cutting the lead to 13 at 46-33 on a Christina Anderson 3-pointer and a bucket by Kelli Critterden.
The Cougars quickly silenced the mini Trojan run as they ripped off nine straight points behind two buckets by Pinto, a bucket by Shelby Campbell and a trey by Peterson for a 55-33 lead. Peterson added two more threes in the last eight minutes to help the Cougars to their 13th win of the season.
WNCC out-shot Colby 52 percent to 41 percent. Colby and the Cougars each had 33 rebounds, as Pinto finished with five to lead WNCC. Colby had two players in double figures, led by Brooke Bursiek with 11 points and Mullen High graduate Tayler Puttergill with 10 points.
Harnish said they need to play better tomorrow against Trinidad to finish the first semester on a strong note.
“We have to play better tomorrow night because teams will always play hard against us,” he said. “We have to learn to be a little bit more disciplined. I thought Colby worked a little harder than us tonight. I was a little disappointed in that aspect because we could have played better.”
Colby 23 32 – 55
WNCC (13-0) 40 34 – 74
COLBY
Elina Gutmane 6, Kelli Crittenden 8, Brooke Bursiek 11, Morgan Rickwartz 3, Hannah Thornton 6, Brittany Schamberger 7, Crystal Kinderknecht 3, Christine Anderson 3, Tayler Puttergill 10.
WNCC
Samantha Sanders 11, Shelby Campbell 6, Tiffany Moorer 6, Kyra Peterson 11, ChaCha Ofoegbu 9, Leona Garrett 6, Thais Pinto 13, Carolina Alves 8, Shelby Jones 2.
1 comment:
To Leona Garret, you have been an inspiration to my daughter out her in the Imperial Valley, You have always been a bright smart lady. Keep on ballin your heart out.
Post a Comment