NORTH PLATTE – The Western Nebraska Community College men’s basketball team sewed up the No. 2 seed from the East Sub-region with a hard-fought contest against North Platte Community College 79-74 in a game that featured plenty of scoring highlights.
The Cougars, in gaining their 16th win of the season, received a 34-point performance from Hauns Brereton. Brereton has now scored 10 or more points in 12 straight games, which is tied for 6th on the all-time charts for scoring in double figures. Brereton is now tied for second in scoring in double figures in a season with 23 games, along with David Speed (1975-76) and Terry Yancey (1984-85). Eric Gore holds the record with 29 double figure games in a season.
WNCC also received two double-doubles. Marko Kovacevic had 18 points, 18 rebounds and four blocks, while Raul Delgado had 18 points and 11 rebounds. Delgado also hit a clutch late second-quarter NBA 3-pointer as the shot clock buzzer was going off.
WNCC coach Russ Beck said that they played well for 33 minutes and did the things they needed to do to get the second seed.
“We did a really good job in a situation where we really wanted to get the number two seed at the regional tournament,” Beck said. “We knew North Platte was going to come out and play really hard. We had a couple of guys come out and have big games. Marko had 18 points and 18 rebounds, which was huge. Hauns had 34 points and Raul had 18.
“We were focused. We really wanted to put the McCook game behind us. We wanted to come out and take care of business. I was pleased with our effort. We played a solid 33 minute game and we had our times. We haven’t put together a full 40-minute game yet, but I am just glad that we got the win.”
WNCC skipped out to a 37-31 halftime lead and pushed the lead to their biggest margin of the game at 48-33 as they went on an 11-2 run to open the second half. The Cougars kept it close to double figures much of the second half even though North Platte bombarded the gym with a school-record 16 3-pointers.
While North Platte was 16 of 37 from the 3-point arc, WNCC was a little more particular instead of launching long balls. Beck said they work on 3-point shooting all the time in practice.
“Fortunately, we spend a lot of time in the gym shooting 3-pointers and working with the guys individually,” he said. “I think it is paying off. We were in the game and were six of 13 from the 3-point line.”
The Cougars, 16-13, will wrap up the regular season on Saturday when they host Northeastern Junior College at 2 p.m. It will also be the last game for the two sophomores – Joe Stock and Hauns Brereton.
Beck said they need to come out ready to play as they face another rivalry game on Saturday.
“We played EWC and were able to take care of business with them at home and away. We then played Casper and we got them at home, and now we have NJC. We want to beat the big three rivals at home. There is big tradition between WNCC and NJC. We just want to come out and be focused and play our game, and play with a lot of effort.”
After Saturday, the Cougars will get ready for the Region IX tournament, which begins March 4 in Norfolk. The Cougars first game will be March 5 at 1 p.m. against the Central No. 3 seed Gillette College.
WNCC (16-13) 37 42 – 79
North Platte (14-14) 31 43 – 74
No comments:
Post a Comment