The Western Nebraska Community College women's basketball team saw their season come to an end as Laramie County Community College came into Cougar Palace and advanced to the quarterfinals with a 73-59 win over the Cougar women Saturday afternoon.
WNCC finishes the year 20-11 while LCCC moves on in the tournament that will be held March 12-14 in Rock Springs, Wyo.
Saturday's contest saw Laramie County shoot 52 percent from the field and bury five 3-pointers while the Cougars were just 37 percent and made just three treys. The big difference in the contest was LCCC had 31 defensive rebounds and controlled the boards 40-30 over the Cougars.
WNCC head coach Ryan Davis said it wasn't one of their best games and he was left speechless after the game of what really happened.
"They had 31 defensive rebounds and it was one of our lowest rebounding totals of the year. I think the College of Southern Idaho game was up there at Gillette, which it tells you what mindset we were in," he said. Our turnovers was one of the worst of the year and I thought we over-dribbled and we didn't move the ball."
Davis was honest and really don't know what happened to his team in the game, especially when the Cougars went up 36-31 to start the third and then let LCCC go on a 10-0 run to go up 41-36 and never took the lead again.
"I am being honest with you and I am a little bit speechless on why that happened (in that third quarter)," he said. "We went from a 95 percent energy down to 20 percent and you can't do that in any game at any time because somebody's going to put a run on you."
There will be lots of unanswered questions of what really happened, but the Cougar were staying with LCCC for the most part. It was those little runs, however, that turned the tide.
WNCC built a 13-6 lead in the first quarter and then watched LCCC tie the game at 13-13 at the end of the opening quarter. LCCC opened the second quarter grabbing a 22-14 lead with 6:43 to play and later led 27-19. WNCC came together and went on a 11-4 run to trail 31-30 at halftime.
The second half the Cougars came out fired up as they score six straight points all from Charisma Johnson to take a 36-31 lead. LCCC charged back with a 10-0 run for a 41-30 lead. WNCC trailed after three 50-44.
LCCC opened the fourth quarter on a 6-0 run to lead 56-44, but the Cougars came back to make it 56-48 after a Zozefine Sipolina 3-pointer. WNCC couldn't get any closer than eight points the rest of the way to fall.
WNCC was led by Johnson with 18 points followed by Ella Chesta-Carty with 11 points. Sipolina had nine while Celena Donyo had eight.
LCCC was led by Sabela Carro with 23 points to match her uniform number while Nuria Florensa had 14, and Selenay Tanik had 13.
The other scores this weekend in first-round games saw Central Wyoming defeating North Platte 71-58, McCook over Casper 63-62, Northwest over Northeastern JC 88-57, Gillette topping Southeast 90-72, and Eastern Wyoming over Otero 55-53.
The quarterfinal match-ups for March 12 will pit Eastern Wyoming and Northwest at 12:30 p.m., Central Wyoming and Lamar at 2:30 p.m., Gillette and LCCC at 5 p.m., and McCook against Western Wyoming at 7 p.m. The semi-finals are Friday and the championship on Saturday.
LCCC 13 18 19 23 – 73
WNCC 13 17 14 15 – 59
LCCC
Sabela Carro 23, Nuria Florensa 14, Selenay Tanik 13, Julia Sanz Bonet 9, Helena Salazar Meinesz 7, Irelynd Barnes 3, Alicia Trujillo 2, Giorielle Mukeba 2.
WNCC
Charisma Johnson 18, Ella Chesta-Carty 11, Zozefine Sipolina 9, Celina Donyo 8, Veralyn Aviles 6, Juseana-Rae Delatori 5, Brynn Sybrant 2.