WNCC, which led for most of the second half, trailed late 59-58 to McCook before Cruz’s go-ahead bucket and free throw that put WNCC up 61-59. Cruz then cashed in on two free throws with 6.3 seconds remaining to seal the Cougars first sub-region win of the season.
During that last minute stretch, however, the Cougars received two huge rebounds from Geddes Robinson and O’Rion Hughes. WNCC coach Russ Beck said rebounding is something they work hard on.
“We always harp to make sure we box out and we were able to do that down the stretch,” Beck said. “We then put them in a position where they had to foul and we were able to get the ball into the right guy’s hand.”
WNCC and McCook were knotted at 29-29 at intermission before the Cougars went ahead by nine points at 46-37 on Cruz’s 3-pointer and 2-point bucket. WNCC kept the lead near the double-digit mark until McCook made a late-game run, taking their first lead since early in the half.
Beck said that his team stayed strong and executed down the stretch.
“We wanted to play a lot of ball pressure because we saw last night [against North Platte] that during a stretch we had a lot of ball pressure and it was really disruptive. So, tonight, we came out and gave them a lot of ball pressure. They had a hard time running the things they wanted to run.
“On the flip side of it, we also didn’t want to fall into the game like we did last night where we took a lot of quick shots and North Platte made us play. Tonight we wanted to make sure we worked the ball around and make them defend us until they wanted to gamble. We just did a better job of controlling the tempo of the game. We knew down the stretch they were going to make a run, but we were able to weather the storm and knock down some shots.”
Another big key for the Cougars in the win was turnovers. WNCC committed just eight turnovers, whereas in previous losses, the team committed over 20 turnovers.
“I thought everybody was on the same page and did a good job of eliminating our turnovers,” Beck said. “We only had eight turnovers for the game and we did a better job of stopping the teams going down the middle.”
The Cougars put three players in double figures. Cruz finished with 18 points, 14 of which came in the second half. Cruz also was perfect from the free throw line, going 5 of 5. WNCC was just 12 of 17 from the charity stripe for the game.
Also hitting double figures was Brylle Kamen with 13 points and Robinson with 10. Ritchie Mundende also had a good game, finishing with eight points.
The Cougars, 14-10, will return home to face Casper College on Tuesday and then Northeast Nebraska on Saturday afternoon in a sub-region contest.
“This is a good sub-region win for us on the road,” Beck said. “Now, we are excited to finally get home again and hoping the crowd can come out and support us.”
WNCC (14-10) 29 34 – 63
MCCook (17-8) 29 30 – 59
WESTERN NEBRASKA
Geoffrey Firmin 2, Saul Torres 2, O’Rion Hughes 4, Joe Stock 2, Francisco Cruz 18, Brylle Kamen 13, Ritchie Mundende 8, Geddes Robinson 10.
No comments:
Post a Comment