Western Nebraska Community College has never finished the national tournament with a loss.
After Friday’s gutsy effort, the Cougars will have a chance to do just that after surviving 55-54 with a heart-pounding win over Walters State College in the consolation bracket of the NJCAA National tournament.
“Harnish said in the locker room after the win that no team that he has coached has ended the season on a win,” Emma Beddome, the game’s leading scorer with 22 points, said. “We are giong to try to end our season with a win and seventh place. And I know all of us girls would love to end our season on a win because it is disappointing to end on a loss.”
The Cougars’ will now face Shelton State in the 7th place game today at noon. Shelton State was a 81-60 winner over Trinity Valley State College.
WNCC coach Dave Harnish said his team has never won on the final day of the tournament and would like to see his team end the streak.
“The bottom line is we are a gutsy team. We find ways to win. We stay in there and hang in there. I am certainly proud of this group to get to the championship game of the consolation bracket,” Harnish said. “This is something we never expected, to come down here and win a couple of games. I am certainly proud of the girls. They never gave in the last two months.”
The way the Cougars won, though, was nerve-racking for Harnish. Then again, Harnish knows no team will roll over.
“Even with the game with Monroe, it won’t never be pretty down here; teams are not just going to give you wins and that is why they are at the national tournament. It is frustrating that we had a 10-point lead and not doing a better job against their press. I thought we could have had some easier buckets and made poor decisions against their press and allowed them to come back.
“The bottom line is not making free throws. The girls were 7-for-15 and you can’t shoot 50 percent and the last two were front-end of one-and-ones.”
Emma Beddome was the glue that held the team together Friday night getting them into the consolation finals. Beddome finished the game with a game-high 22 points, including three 3-pointers on 8 of 12 shooting. She also was a perfect 3-of-3 from the charity stripe.
“Watching them [Thursday] I thought it would be a much easier contest then what it was. But, they came out hard and strong. We just new we had to fight hard to get the win,” the 6-foot sophomore said.
Beddome said there defense was the key, especially down the stretch.
“We know if we can play defense, we can win any game. We just need to finish on our free throws.
WNCC won Friday because of the will to win, like Harnish said. They also out-rebounding the Senators 37-35 and out-shot them 45 to 38 percent.
“Early in the first half we weren’t rebounding the ball well and then before halftime we rebounded a little bit better and did a better job in the second half. That is one of the keys. I told them at halftime that we can’t run if we don’t rebound the ball and we can’t control the game and get easy buckets without rebounding. I thought we did a better job today.”
WNCC started strong by running out to a 12-4 lead behind five points by sophomore Emma Beddome, including a 3-pointer. Walters State bounced back, going on a 16-3 run to take a 20-15 lead on a steal by Rhon’Neisha Taylor with 5:41 to play in the half.
The Cougars stopped the run with toughness of their own as Chelsea Lyles collected back-to-back buckets and then Tawny Drexler had an old-fashioned 3-point play to tie the game at 22. Drexler then added back-to-back buckets to expand the lead to 26-22, before Beddome had an old-fashioned 3-point play for a 29-23 halftime lead.
WNCC kept the lead around 10 points for much of the second half, including a 45-35 lead with eight minutes to play on back-to-back buckets by Beddome and a bucket by SeLina Ysac. The Senators rallied back, going on a 11-1 run to tie the game at 46 on a Taylor 3-pointer with 5;22 to play.
Beddome immediately gave WNCC the lead back on her third trey of the game. Walters State came back and tied the game at 51 on a bucket by Megan Rollins with 55 seconds to play. Shaquilah Davis wasted little time scoring for the Cougars as she scored on a driving jumper.
WNCC widened the lead to 55-51 on two free throws by Beddome. The Senators sliced the lead to 55-54 with 13.7 seconds to play on a long-range 3-pointer by Jasmine Coleman. WNCC had two changes to salt away the win late, but missed crucial free throws, forcing WNCC’s defense to hold the Senators without a shot attempt in the final four seconds of the game for the win.
Besides Beddome, Drexler also had a big day for the Cougars, finishing with 14 points, 11 of which came in the first half. Drexler also hauled down five rebounds.
Walters State was led by Allysia Bailey with 17 points followed by Coleman with 10.
“This win was a gutsy effort for the girls., The way we won this game is huge,” he said. “Now we are playing for seventh place. Teams are good down here. The team we played today won 30 games. All we can do is go in and compete [today] and have fun. We got this far so we need just need to play hard and give it another go.”
Walters State (30-6) 23 31 -- 54
Western Nebraska (32-5) 29 26 -- 55
WALTERS STATE
Rhon’Neisha Taylor 8, Megan Rollins 4, Dana garrett 8, Nakisha Strickland 4, Allysia Bailey 17, Jasmin Coleman 10, Shakirea White 1, Chantel Johnson 2.
WESTERN NEBRASKA
Emma Beddome 22, Jenna Colwell 2, Tawny Drexler 14, Chelsea Lyles 6, Alison Cheney 2, Shaquilah Davis 2, SeLiina Ysac 4, Carly Glisan 3.
No comments:
Post a Comment