The Western Nebraska Community College women's basketball team finished the regular season at 20-10 and now begins the real season with the first-round of the Region IX tournament happening this weekend.
The Cougars, who finished second in the South sub-region with a 10-4 record, will begin the tournament with a first-round home contest on Saturday, March 7 at 1 p.m. against Laramie County Community College. LCCC is the North seventh seed. The winner advances to the 3-day Region IX tournament March 12-14 in Rock Springs, Wyoming.
Western Wyoming Community College won the North sub-region because of tiebreakers as Western Wyoming, Northwest College, and Gillette College all had 8-4 sub-region record.
The Cougars ' first-round contest will be one the team can't take lightly, as Laramie County finished the season at 9-19, and their last win was a 78-67 win on February 4 against Casper College. The last time out, the Golden Eagles lost to Central Wyoming College 81-76 in overtime on March 2.
The players and coaches realize how important this first game is since only eight teams will advance to bracket play.
"This is the most wide open the region tournament has been since I have been coaching," WNCC head coach Ryan Davis said. "You can make a case for a lot of teams to either upset someone or make a deep run. It will be tough. The teams that play with a purpose, refuse to lose, find a way, and are most connected are going to advance."
Western Wyoming and Lamar Community College earned first-round byes for winning the sub-regions and are automatically in the quarterfinals. The rest of the teams will play cross-sub-region first-round games.
Besides WNCC hosting LCCC on Saturday, other first found games will pit (S3) Otero hosting (N6) Eastern Wyoming College; (S4) McCook hosting (N5) Casper College; (N4) Central Wyoming hosting (S5) North Platte; (N3) Gillette College hosting (S6) Southeast Community College; and (N2) Northwest College facing (S7) Northeastern Junior College.
All the games will be played Saturday afternoon except the Central Wyoming and North Platte game, which will be played Friday night.
Davis said his team needs to stay locked in come Saturday, something they did last Saturday in a win over NJC on the road.
"We need to be locked in early in the game on the defensive side of the ball," he said. "We are best when we get stops and play in transition. We have worked on this a lot lately but being connected and all on the same page is a big factor to our success as well. Last Saturday against NJC was the most connected we have been all year and it showed with how the game went."
WNCC has played LCCC twice this season back in November when the Cougars won 71-55 at Cougar Palace on November 4 and then won 74-70 in overtime on November 29 in overtime.
If they win they will place the winner of the Gillette and Southeast contest, teams they have played twice. WNCC defeated Gillette 71-62 at home on December 14 and the lost to the Pronghorns on the road 69-54. As for Southeast, WNCC defeated the Bobcats 82-65 at Cougar Palace and then needed a last-second shot by Ella Cresta-Carty to down Southeast 83-80 on the road.
Davis said they have to stay confident to win in the tournament.
"Playing loose and with a purpose are the keys," Davis said. "Win or go home, so there is built-in pressure to those situations, but for us, we have played Laramie County twice, then if we win, we will have played Southeast and Gillette twice. So, brushing up on those teams we know what we are getting into so just going out and being confident in our abilities and leaning on each other early in the tournament."
Last year, WNCC won the south and got to host the Region IX tournament. The Cougars fell in a heart-breaking semi-final match to Western Wyoming a year ago by a point.
This year, the north hosts and the tournament will be in Rock Springs, Wyoming. The winners' this weekend will play quarterfinal games on March 12 with the championship slated for March 14. The Region IX winner will advance to the NJCAA national tournament on the campus of McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana, March 24-31.
The complete tournament bracket should be released sometime Wednesday.