Western Nebraska Community College's Sebastian Suarez went off for 34 points and four 3-pointers as the Cougars inched closer to hosting the Region IX tournament with a dominating 94-64 sub-region win over McCook Community College on Saturday afternoon.
The Cougars moved to 10-2 in the sub-region and are either tied or a game behind Northeastern Junior College. The Plainsmen fell to Trinidad State Junior College on Friday and played at Otero Junior College late Saturday night where an Otero win would put WNCC in sole position of first place.
"The defense early was really huge for us and then we had a bad three minutes where we were fouling a lot," WNCC coach Russ Beck said. "We had to call time out and remind ourselves of how we need to play team defense and team offense. We are happy with the win. Obviously McCook's roster is different from the last time we played, but I still felt they played hard and they gave it a good effort. We have one more regular season sub-region game and now we are focused on North Platte."
WNCC was playing on all cylinders as the Cougars shot 53 percent from the field while forcing 22 McCook turnovers. The Cougars also got contributions from a wide range of players. Only two players finished in double digits as Suarez ahd 34 points and Du'Vaughn Maxwell had 16. After that, Terrance Motley had nine points and Mike Peltz and Mason Smith each had seven.
"I thought it was a real good team effort and it was fun to see the guys that don't get to play a lot out there because they, Allen, Marcus, Alonzo, Cal, work hard every single day in practice . They made our team a lot better so it was nice to see them out there."
The contest started out as a battle but the Cougars kept executing as they built a 10-point lead, 24-14, on a Motley bucket with nine minutes to play in the opening half. WNCC kept the score around double digits the rest of the half, going into the locker room up 47-34.
"The second half started out with a flurry as McCook send the Cougars into the bonus with just under six minutes gone on the clock. Both teams combined on 40 fouls, with McCook picking up 25.
WNCC practically sealed the win when Mason Smith had a super-duper 3-point play to put the Cougars up 67-38 with 13 minutes to play. WNCC kept playing tough as Suarez continued his hot had with back-to-back buckets toput WNCC up 77-41 and the Cougars never looked back.
WNCC, 23-5, have two regular season games left. Tuesday they travel to North Platte to face North Platte Community College in a sub-region contest. They will then wrap up the regular season on Saturday when they travel to Casper College.
McCook (14-14) 34 30 -- 64
WNCC (23-5) 47 47 -- 94
MCCOOK
NIkola Maric 2, Carl Swallow 32, Trent Kuhn 1, Onyema Utti 7, Booker Washington 4, LaShawn Hamilton 7, Deominique McKinzie 5, David Smith 6.
WNCC
Mike Peltz 7, Allen Beck 5, Cal McCoy 3, Du'Vaughn Maxwell 16, Mason Smith 7, Raul Delgado 5, Sebastian Suarez 34, Marko Kovacevic 6, Terrance Motley 9, Marcus Johnson 2.
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