Photo: Ella Chesta-Carty goes up for a lay-up in the first half of their game with LCCC on Saturday. (photo courtesy of Nicole Messman).

                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.

WNCC men end season with first-round defeat to Northwest

                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.