Vinnie Shahid poured in 21 points as the Western Nebraska Community College men's basketball team picked up a big Region IX South 82-57 win over Northeastern Junior College Friday evening at Cougar Palace.
The win was the Cougars 10th of the season. More importantly, it snapped a two-game losing skid.
Jeremy Ruffin said this win feels good after suffering last week's two heartbreaking losses to North Platte Community College and McCook Community College.
"This is a real bounce-back for us," he said. "The self confidence is pretty neck-to-neck with everybody and this put us back in the race to be at the top of the top [of the South sub-region)."
More importantly, the Cougars played well in getting the win and it was the defensive intensity that got them the win.
"I feel like we played well," the sophomore forward said. "We played hard and executed the game plan."
Ruffin said with the score tied at 10-10, the Cougars finally opened things up offensively.
"What we did was we dug deeper. We got some stops on defense and we got three stops in a row was a key. We started adding those together and started converting our stops that led to our lead."
NJC led 16-15 and that was when the Cougars opened up the contest with 3-pointers by Michael Connor, Jr., and Shahid as WNCC led 25-20. WNCC kept going, from there as RJ Palmer had a driving lay-up. WNCC finished out the half hitting on 8 of 9 free throws for a 37-28 halftime lead.
The second half got close for a moment as NJC sliced the lead to 41-35 on a 3-pointer by Garrett Baggett. WNCC came back and pushed the lead to 13, 51-38 on 3-pointers by Dordje Dimitrijevic and Trent Harris.
NJC came back to cut the lead to 51-44 with about 11 minutes to play on a trey by Kei'Shon Parker. It was what the Cougars did after that which was impressive, holding NJC to without a bucket for nearly three minutes while ripping off a 9-0 run to lead 60-44. NJC never sliced the lead to single digits after that.
Ruffin said defensive stops was critical in the runs.
"Defense was our main focus coming in and it was getting stops," he said. "The offense will take care of itself once we got stops."
WNCC shot 40 percent for the game while hitting eight 3-pointers. NJC was 35 percent from the game with two treys.
The Cougars had four players finish in double figures. Shahid's 21 points led both teams. Shahid went 14 of 15 from the charity stripe while dishing off six assists.
Dimitrijevic finished with 19 points, including four 3-pointers followed by Connor, Jr., with 13 points and two treys. Palmer tallied 10 points while pulling down four rebounds.
WNCC, 10-7, will be back in action Saturday afternoon when they host No. 11 Lamar Community College at 4 p.m.
Ruffin said they need to play like they did tonight.
"We have to do the same thing as we did today," he said. "We have to focus on defending first because the offense will take care of itself; we just have to get stops and play our game."
NJC 28 29 – 57
WNCC (10-7) 37 45 – 82
NJC
Kei'Shon Parker 7, Garrett Baggett 5, Jazz Parker 8, Jalonni McCovery 8, Avel Mpoyo 16, Dan Villejo 2, Jalen Guidry 4, Marsalis Johnson 7.
WNCC
Trent Harris 3, RJ Palmer 10, Vinnie Shahid 21, Michael Connor, Jr. 13, Marlon Sierra 9, Djodje Dimitrijevic 19, Jeremy Ruffin 7.