POWELL, Wyo. – The Western Nebraska Community College men's basketball team ended their season with another hard-luck defeat to Northwest College in the first-round of the Region IX tournament in Powell, Wyoming, Saturday afternoon falling to Northwest 85-73.
The Cougars finish the season at 9-22 and Saturday's defeat was characteristic of games all season where the Cougars have big leads and then go on one mini scoring slump.
Saturday was no different.
WNCC started strong from the start, holding an 8-2 lead after back-to-back 3-pointers from Viktor Lukic-Gavric and Toms Linis. WNCC then went on a five-minute scoring slump as the Trappers scored 18 unanswered points to take a 20-8 lead. Lukic-Gavric stopped the run with a bucket with 13:31 to play in the opening half.
The Trapper lead ballooned to 27-10 before the Cougars found their scoring touch once again with a tip-in by Amare Jackson and a 3-point bucket by Isaiah St. Preux to make it 27-15. WNCC climbed to within single digits at 27-18 on two Melchi Egbeyemi free throws and made it a 7-point game on a Kellon Harris dunk with eight minutes to play in the opening half.
WNCC could never get to within more than eight points of Northwest as the Trappers held a 41-32 lead at halftime.
The second half saw Northwest open with a 14-6 run to lead 55-39. WNCC's two buckets were 3-points from Lukic-Gavric and Xavier Kirkptrick. WNCC trailed 65-51 on a Northwest dunk. That was when WNCC made a mini-run of 8-0 to get within six.
That run started on a St. Preux 3-pointer followed by a Noah Jones trey and capped off with two Kirkpatrick free throws. Northwest answered with six straight and led 71-59 with just over four minutes to play.
The two teams exchanged buckets after that and Northwest advanced to the quarterfinals of the regional tournament in Sterling, Colorado, with the 85-73 win.
WNCC shot 36 percent from the field and made 13-of-34 3-point attempts. Northwest shot 43 percent and made just 5-of-24 3-pointers. The difference was free throw shooting where the Cougars were just 16-of-25 from the line while Northwest was 32-of-39.
The other difference in the contest was rebounding where Northwest held a 50-26 advantage.
WNCC was led by Lukic-Gavric with 23 points while St. Preux had 16. Noah Jones tallied nine while Kirkpatrick had eight points.
In other first-round scores from Saturday's action, only two North sub-region teams won. Northwest and the other was Casper, who downed Southeast Community College 87-82. The other winners Saturday were all from the South sub-region. They included Lamar over Western Wyoming 84-75, McCook over Eastern Wyoming 103-70, North Platte over Central Wyoming 78-73, and Trinidad State over Gillette 100-74.
The quarterfinals on March 12 at Sterling, Colorado, are all set and will have Lamar taking on Casper at 1 p.m., Laramie County facing McCook at 3 p.m., Northwest meeting North Platte at 5 p.m., and Northeastern Junior College taking on Trinidad State at 7 p.m. The championship is slated for March 14 at 3 p.m.
WNCC 32 41 – 73
Northwest 41 44 – 85
WNCC
Viktor Lukic-Gavric 23, Isaiah St. Preux 16, Noah Jones 9, Xavier Kirkpatrick 8, Amare Jackson 6, Melchi Egneyemi 5, Kellon Harris 3, Toms Linis 3.
NORTHWEST
Mateo Trujillo 23, R'Zha Zha'Quire Whittle 16, Trey Rinn 12, Braydon Bradshaw 9, Tate Monroe 8, Nayel Girard 6, Logan Woolstenhulme 6, Eli Patterson 5.