Brylle Kamen’s enthusiasm on the court was contagious for the Western Nebraska Community College men’s basketball team as they picked up a huge, emotional 73-67 win Tuesday night at Cougar Palace. The win was especially huge since the Thunderbirds beat the Cougars three weeks ago 75-56 and did it pretty easy. Tuesday night, the Cougars were insistent on picking up the win, which they did behind Kamen’s double-double of 18 points and 12 rebounds.
“This win is very big. We haven’t won a big game for two months now,” a jubilant Kamen, who electrified the crowd with his gutsy play, said. “We are very happy right now. We went to Casper and lost. We have went almost everywhere else and lost, so it is a relief to win this game. I am very happy tonight.”
Actually, it wasn’t just one person that stepped up tonight; it was a team effort as three players recorded double-figure scoring. Kamen led the way with his 18 points followed by Geddes Robinson with 17 and Francisco Cruz with 14.
Another reason for the Cougars’ 15th win of the season was rebounding. WNCC out-rebounded the 19-6 Casper Thunderbirds 52-39. WNCC coach Russ Beck definitely was elated to see the Cougars step up in that category.
“It doesn’t always matter how big you are. It matters about staying in a stance, turning and locating a man, making sure you know your defensive assignment and making sure you are boxing out. We played a lot of zone at their place and the problem with zone is sometimes we don’t identify who we need to box out. We played predominately man tonight except for a few possessions and we actually knew who we needed to box out and track down that rebound.”
WNCC dominated the 16 minutes of the first half, racing to a 10-2 lead before Casper came back to take an 18-13 lead on a 4-point play from James Hayden. The Cougars didn’t panic, going on a 12-2 run to take a 25-20 lead on four points each from Robinson and Cruz.
Casper sliced the lead to 28-27 late, but a Joe Stock 3-pointer with 47 seconds left in the first half gave the Cougars a 32-27 halftime lead.
The second half was a nail-biter to the end as WNCC held five-point leads early in the half, the last time at 45-40. Casper came back to take a 45-44 lead on a 3-point play from Robert Mayes. The lead didn’t last long as the Cougars zipped to a 51-47 lead behind five straight points from Robinson.
Casper cut the deficit to a single point on a Art Steward offensive putback with 3:40 to play. Kamen, however, got the Cougar fans excited with some spirited play with a bucket with 3 minutes to play. Kamen later sank two free throws with 41.9 seconds to play to put WNCC up 69-65.
WNCC kept playing strong as Joe Stock picked up a big steal and then nailed one of two free throws with 18.1 seconds left and a 70-65 lead. Steward hit a bucket with 12.4 seconds remaining. After Cruz made it a 4-point game, Casper missed a 3-pointer and Stock skied to get the rebound and converted two free throws to ice the game.
Kamen said his team stepped up two the challenge and played 40 minutes of basketball.
“Since we are losing so much, coach just wants to emphasize key parts of the game like defense, boxing out and rebounding,” he said. “We gave our best effort today in rebounding. We did a good job because we won the rebounding battle.”
The Cougars, 15-10, will return back to action on Saturday when they face Northeast (Neb.) Community College in a sub-region contest with tip-off slated for 3 p.m. The last time the two squads met, back on Jan. 23, Northeast won 78-76 on a buzzer-beater.
Kamen said this win will do a lot for confidence heading into Saturday’s important contest.
“Saturday is a sub-region game and we already lost two sub-region games so we can’t lose any more,” he said. “We need to play big defense and rebounding. This is confidence and momentum to come into Saturday’s game.”
Casper (19-7) 27 40 – 67
WNCC (15-10) 32 41 – 73
CASPER
Art Steward 21, Brandon Walton 11, Abner Kamps 2, James Hayden 6, Nikola Kovac 4, Cameron Howard 11, Robert Mayes 7, Antonio DiMiaria 5.
WESTERN NEBRASKA
Geoffery Firmin 5, Saul Torres 5, O’Rion Hughes 4, Joe Stock 8, Francisco Cruz 14, Brylle Kamen 18, Ritchie Mundende 2, Geddes Robinson 17.
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