The Western Nebraska Community College men’s basketball team needed a strong second half to advance to the quarterfinals of the Region IX tournament at Cougar Palace Friday night.
The Cougars used a 17-6 run to start the second half to get by Northeast Community College 76-66 to move into Sunday’s action. WNCC will face the winner of Saturday’s late game between Northwest College and North Platte at 8 p.m.
Other first round games on Friday saw Otero Junior College run over Gillette College 81-59, Miles Community College topple McCook Community College 98-69, and Casper College top Trinidad State Junior College In a shot out 108-89.
First round action continues Saturday with four games. Eastern Wyoming College faces Sheridan at 1 p.m., Laramie County Community College faces Western Wyoming Community College at 3 p.m., and Northeastern Junior College meets Central Wyoming College at 6 p.m.
WNCC coach Russ Beck said his team find a way to win against a Northeast team that stayed with the No. 1 seeded Cougars to the very last minutes.
“You have to give them credit, they came in and played hard and it is very difficult to beat a team three times in a row,” he said. “I felt like this was going to be a dog fight of a game. Bluford played really well in the first half with 19 points at halftime. We slowed him down a little bit in the second half, but when we slowed Bluford down, Adderley started to get to the rim and drawling a lot of fouls. Both those kids are good players and a lot of credit goes to Northeast because they came in here and played hard. We are pleased with the win and we need to refocus and come out [Sunday] with a little bit better execution in our next game whoever that might be.”
Beck said that they can only play better on Sunday. Against Northeast, WNCC shot just 41 percent from the field and just 26 percent from beyond the arc. The Cougars were also just 65 percent from the free throw line.
“The good thing is that we are going to play better. We didn’t necessary play very good [tonight] and the optimistic thing is to think we will be able to step up our game and get to the level that we need to play at and capable of. We just need to defend. The key to this tournament is defending and rebounding the basketball.”
The Cougars had all kinds of fits against a Hawk team that was on the top of their game. Northeast led by four and five points for much of the first half, including at 19-14. That was when Raul Delgado strung together seven straight points to give the Cougars only their second lead of the first half at 21-19.
That lead was short lived as Northeast came back to grab a 32-31 lead with 5:33 to play on back-to-back treys by KJ Bluford before the Cougars held a 35-34 lead at intermission.
WNCC started the second half with a 17-6 run to go up 52-40. The run was highlighted by 10 points from Maxwell, including a eye-popping lay-in that was made possible by Brady Mason saving the ball through his legs on the sideline.
Northeast fought back to cut the lead to 52-48 and later 57-53 on a 3-pointer by Jarvis Green-Smoot. WNCC regained control by going back up by double digits on a Terrance Motley bucket, 66-56 to get the win.
Motley led the Cougars with a double-double of 18 points and 10 rebounds. Delgado finished with 17 points and four assists, while Maxwell had 16 points, eight rebounds and three assists.
Bluford led Northeast with 27 points, including six 3-pointers.
Game One
Otero 81, Gillette 59
Gillette 20 39 – 59
Otero 37 44 – 81
GILLETTE
Matt Strickland 2, Kashaune McKinney 7, Tony Lowery 3, Reece Maxwell 4, James Hunter 15, George Edwards 25, Kalen Foreman 3.
Otero
Perryonte Smith 4, Wes McKenzie 2, Elliott Hamseed 2, Lucas Archuleta 8, Brandon Harris 13, Dylan Fritsch 14, Adam Link 27, Oscar Garcia 8, Chris Strong 4.
Game Two
McCook 28 41 – 69
Miles 47 51 – 98
MCCOOK
Nikola Maric 6, Carl Swallow 5, Onyema Utti 29, Booker Washington 4, LaShawn Hamilton 5, Deominique McKinzie 2, Raymond Jones 2, David Smith 16.
MILES
Sian Laine 7, Tiron Brown 2, Colby Hardin 9, Tyree Anderson 26, Nick Dermusis 11, Aleksandar Ivkovic 9, Jeremy Nicholas 8, Ashante Ross 9, Ayibakuro Preh 4.
Game Three
Trinidad 35 54 -- 89
Casper 51 51 57 -- 108
TRNIIDAD
MaArthur Gaines 2, Devon Gee 3, Devonte Malcolm 9, Bryant Evans 14, Tyrell Williams 20, Jubreece Thompson 12, Devone Upson 15, Terrence Smith 14.
CASPER
Darrious Curry 17, Tyler Reynolds 11, Remi Dibo 8, Austin Kofoed 2, Denzel Douglas 8, Dominique Lee 8, Dominigue Brooks 5, Sam Johnson 12, Deninson Burguillos 5, Jerrold Brooks 13, Daniel Carlin 2, Cobi Eskew 9, Tyler Larson 8.
Game Four
NE Nebraska 34 32 – 66
WNCC 35 41 – 76
NORTHEAST NEBRASKA
Jacquard Hagen 6, Jarvis Green-Smoot 6, KJ Bluford 27, Cameron Adderley 19, Kyle Rutledge 3, Eric Tucker 2, Seterling Smoak 3.
WNCC
Tahir Little 2, Mike Peltz 8, Du’Vaughn Maxwell 16, Mason Smith 4, Raul Delgado 17, Sebastian Suarez 4, Marko Kovacevic 7, Terrance Motley 18.
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