The win also stopped a five-game losing skid for the Cougars and the big reason was the team’s defensive pressure that generated 24 Eastern Wyoming turnovers.
WNCC coach Russ Beck said they there were a couple of players that stepped up big for the team tonight, including Alliance’s Mike Peltz and sophomore Joe Stock.
“Peltz did have a good game. He is a good creator. He is a warrior,” Beck said “He does exactly what I ask him to do. He doesn’t do anything that I don’t want him to do. You know what, though, Joe had a good game, Hauns had a good game, and I thought Raul came in and did some nice things.
It was Stock, though, that gave the team the lift they needed in the second half as he blistered the nets for five 3-pointers to change the complexion of the game.
“Joe has been in the gym and has been working on getting his shooting license for about three days now,” he said. “He got it today and I think the repetitions in him trying to get his shooting license really helped him tonight.”
EWC coach Casey Jones said they were their worst enemy, suffering 17 first half turnovers and then let Stock steal the game from them with his stellar shooting.
“In my mind, the game was pretty simple. It was 29 turnovers including 17 in the first half. In my opinion we should have been up by 15 at half by shooting 60 percent, but we turned it over 17 times,” he said. “The second half one player beat us as No. 12 [Joe Stock] hit threes. Later in the game, with five minutes to play, other players on their team had confidence and made some shots.
“There wasn’t very many points scored in the game and when one kid makes five threes in a half, it is pretty tough.”
Beck said this is a good win for his squad, especially against a Lancer team that is better than their 2-12 record.
“Casey is a good coach and those boys play awful hard,” Beck said. “We expect to see a whale of a game when we go to their place. They are very close to starting to rack up some wins and they will start surprising some people.
EWC bolted out of the gates early, moving to an 10-4 lead and led 14-10 on a Ivan Simic bucket. That was when things went the other way for the Lancers as the Cougars went on a 10-0 run over the next nine minutes to grab a 20-14 lead. The run included a thundering dunk by Stephen Shepherd and a a steal and 3-point play by Alliance’s Mike Peltz.
The Lancers finally broke the scoring slump on a bucket by Sidney’s Matt Rosenbaum with 6:16 in the first half. EWC came back to tie the game at 26-26 on back-to-back buckets by Jarett Upchurch. But, two buckets by Justin Omogun gave the Cougars a 30-28 led into halftime.
The second became the Joe Stock show as the sophomore from Louisiana buried five 3-pointers, including three in the first three minutes of the half to bolt the Cougars to a 42-32 lead. WNCC kept the lead near double digits for most of the half.
After Peltz hit an old-fashioned 3-point play to push the lead to 59-44 with 6:26 to play, the Cougars went on a 10-4 run to widen the gap to 21 points, 69-48. The Lancers fought back, going on a 12-3 run to slice the lead to 72-60 with under a minute to play.
WNCC finished the contest out-shooting the Lancers 61 to 49 percent. It was also the 3-point shooting that was the difference as WNCC connected on 5 of 8 shots, while the Lancers were just 2 of 10.
WNCC had three players finish in double figures. Stock had 21 points followed by Justin Omogun with 15 and Peltz with 12.
The Lancers were paced by Ivan Simic with 12 points followed by Matt Rosenbaum with 10.
EWC (2-12)
WNCC (9-6) 30 44 – 74
EWC
Nikos Stathopoulos 7, Jordan Johnson 7, Corey Puckett 4, Jarett Upchurch 8, Zach Young 6, Tautvydas Kairys 6, Chad Cottam 2, Matt Rosenbaum 10, Ivan Simic 12.
WNCC
Mike Peltz 12, Joe Stock 21, Justin Omogun 15, Stephen Shepherd 4, Hauns Brereton 9, Raul Delgado 8, Aaron Turner 2, Marko Kovacevic 2.
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