LIBERAL, Kan. – The Western Nebraska Community College men's basketball team trailed twice early but ran away with a dominating 107-87 win over Nationwide Academy Prep School Sunday afternoon in Liberal, Kansas.

                The Cougars, in posting their fourth win in four tries this season, had 12 of 13 players score while shooting 52 percent for the game.

                Them Koang, a sophomore from Grand Island, continued his scoring pace during the young season with a 20-point outing. Koang was 10 of 13 from the field to lead the team.

                WNCC had two other players in double digits with Mamadou Sow finishing with 18 points while Dimitrije Nikolic had 11 points. Jasiya DeOllos and Valentin Romero was near double digits with nine points each.

                WNCC trailed 4-0 early and later at 8-6. After that, Turumbil Zaki hit a bucket to tie the game and then Chancelor Johnson had a trey to put WNCC up 11-8. Nationwide cut the lead to two points at 16-14, but WNCC went on an 12-2 run to lead 25-16 on six points by Koang.

                Nationwide cut the lead to within single digits at 38-29, but that was when WNCC went on a 11-0 run behind five points from DeOllos for a 49-29 lead. WNCC led at halftime 54-36.

                WNCC opened the second half out-scoring Nationwide 22-7 early on to lead 76-43. Nationwide came back to cut the lead to within 20 at 8—61 but WNCC pushed the lead to 96-71 on a trey by Michael Bradley.

                Nationwide followed with a 6-0 run to cut the Cougars' lead to 96-77, but the Cougars went on a 9-0 run that included Romero scoring back-to-back buckets including getting the shot to put the Cougars over the century mark for the first time since last February when the Cougars downed Central Wyoming 113-102 in overtime on the road.

                Both teams finished the game with seven treys. Agwa Nywest and Chancelor Johnson each had two treys. The Cougars were 8 of 16 from the free throw line while Nationwide was 28 of 37 from the stripe.

                WNCC, 4-0, will be back in action Tuesday when they host Eastern Wyoming College in a women's and men's doubleheader. The women's contest starts at 5:30 p.m. with the men's Highway 26 border war battle beginning at 7:30 p.m.

WNCC                   54 53 – 107

Nationwide        36 51 – 87

WNCC

Turumbi Zaki 7, Them Koang 20, Carter Brown 3, Biko Johnson 8, Agwa Nywesh 6, Jasiya DeOllos 9, Dimitrije Nikolic 11, Carl Thorpe 7, Michael Bradley 3, Chancelor Johnson 6, Valentin Romero 9, Mamadou Sow 18.

NATIONWIDE

Xavier Savage 11, Aaron McGee 21, Kye Dickson 13, Barry Wilds 16, Mamady Sano 3, Daylen Webb 12, Desmond Tramble 11.