WNCC women's basketball tips off the season Saturday at Colby

Khayla Gladney has never played on a basketball team with so much height like the Western Nebraska Community College women’s basketball team has that she is elated to play on a team that features so much height and talent.

Gladney, a 6-1 forward from Los Angeles, Calif., won’t have to wait too much longer to get that chance as preseason NJCAA 15^th-ranked Cougars open the season on Saturday at Colby Community College.

“I think everyone is excited to get started,” the freshman said. “We are trying to build toward nationals and I think we are going to work really hard to make that happen.”

The one thing that is definitely in the Cougars favor is their height. WNCC has nine players that stand 5-10 or taller, with seven players listed 6-foot or taller. Gladney, said playing with all this height is something new to her.

“I have seen teams with as much height, but I never been a part of a team with so much height,” she said. “We have high expectations because Coach Harnish gets on all of us and tries to make us do the best that we can in everything from school to on the court.”

Gladney is just one of the tall timbers on the squad. The tallest Cougar is 6-foot-7 Thais Pinto of Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Pinto is the tallest women’s basketball player to play for Harnish since Awa Diop in the early 2000s.

The other tall players include 6-2 Kelli Culver of Arvada, Colo., 6-2 Soulijah Evans and 6-1 Tynetta Turner of San Diego, Calif., 6-0 Carolina Alves of Belo Horizonte, Brazil, 6-0 Tiffany Moorer of Harbor City, Calif., 5-10 Tayler Puttergill of Mullen, and 5-10 Yuki Morimoto of Tokyo, Japan.

The other members of the squad include 5-9 Amber Kistler of Bayard, 5-9 Stormye Everett of Aurora, Colo., 5-3 Shelby Campbell of Hemingford, 5-9 Ariane Brown of Colorado Springs, Colo., 5-8 Madison Keller of Scottsbluff, and 5-8 Michelle Glaze of Brighton, Colo.

Gladney said this team has a lot of potential.

“The season looks really good,” she said. “I think we will have a fantastic year. We have a lot of talent and we are working really hard to put it all together.”

Gladney said this team will be able to score some points from a variety of people.

“I think our strength is we have a lot of good shooters and a lot of people that can make good moves to the basket,” she said. “I think we have to work better on transition defense because that is what coach complains about the most.”

WNCC is not quite to head coach Dave Harnish’s perfection just yet.

“Harnish is a good motivator to us. He tells us what we need to do. He likes details and is kind of a perfectionist,” she said. “We aren’t quite neat to perfecting everything, but we are working on it. He is trying to make us get there.”

The Cougars are also a young team with just two sophomores returning from last year’s 24-8 squad that lost in the semi-finals of the Region IX tournament. Those two, Kister and Everett, will be vital leaders to the team.

“We are coming along pretty well and by the time the season comes, we should do well and play as coach wants us to play,” Gladney said. “I think we have enough talent to do so. We just have to bring it all together and we should be good.”

After Saturday’s contest in Colby, the Cougars will compete in tournaments at the Air Force Prep on back-to-back weekends before heading to Garden City, Kan., for a Thanksgiving tournament. WNCC will have their first home contests Dec. 3-5 with the Colorado/Nebraska Showcase followed by the Lady Cougar Holiday Classic the next weekend.