It was a tale of two halves for the Western Nebraska Community College men's basketball team in a South Sub-region contest against defending Region IX champions Saturday afternoon at Cougar Palace.
WNCC played one of its best defensive games in the first half with a 39-29 halftime lead. The second half was a different story as the Plainsmen scored 60 points in registering the 89-78 win.
WNCC head coach Billy Engel said they couldn't contain a hot-shooting NJC squad in the second half.
"We played really well in the first half," Engel said. "We gave our best effort the first half and did a lot of things right and we weren't able to carry that over to the second half. We weren't able to continue that level of play."
The two halves belonged to each team. The Cougars defense and offense was definitely there in the opening 20 minutes. WNCC shot 46 percent in the first half and connected on 6-of-13 3-pointers. The Cougars' defense was also playing hard, holding NJC to just 39 percent shooting and just 2-of-9 from the 3-point arc.
The second half was flip-flopped. WNCC shot 39 percent and were just 5-of-15 from the 3-point arc. The Plainsmen shot lights out at 68 percent and were 5-of-8 from the 3-point arc.
The difference in the game was at the charity stripe where NJC was 16-of-25 and were 13-of-21 in the second half. WNCC shot just 53 percent from the line at 17-of-32.
"Something happened at halftime," Engel said. "They (NJC) have a mature group and a lot of third-year players and having a 10-point deficit certainly wasn't going to stop them from playing the right way."
The big thing, though, is WNCC was in the game until the final three minutes with the score tied at 72-72. NJC closed out the final minutes outscoring WNCC 17-6 and making eight free throws.
Engel said they just made the shots when they needed to.
"They hit some shots and we wanted to continue to press and trap the way we do," Engel said. "We just didn't do it the way we were supposed to. We were playing hard but not necessarily playing smart today."
NJC opened the game on a 6-0 run, but WNCC came storming back to outscore the Plainsmen 15-3 to hold a 15-9 lead. The run was highlighted by three 3-pointers by Biko Johnson, Agwa Nywesh, and Carter Brown. NJC sliced the lead to 21-19 at one point, but that was when the Cougars picked it up once again, scoring seven straight behind a big 3-pointer by Rodney Sawyer to lead 28-19.
After five points from NJC to cut the deficit to 28-24, WNCC scored 10 straight including a trey by Brown for a 38-24 lead. WNCC led 39-28 at halftime.
The second half was a back-and-forth contest. NJC finally tied the game at 44-44 with 16:10 to play on a Cyler Kane-Johnson bucket. The game was tied at 45-45 one more time before WNCC took a 51-45 lead on a Johnson trey and then then an old-fashioned 3-point play.
NJC took its first lead since the opening five minutes at 58-57 with 10 minutes to play on a Jared Adams bucket. NJC held a 67-61 lead before WNCC came back to tie the game at 72-72 on a Carl Thorpe bucket.
NJC went on a 7-0 run to lead 79-72, but the Cougars kept battling as they sliced the lead to six points, 84-78 on a Nywesh 3-pointer with 30 seconds to play. But that was as close as they could get.
WNCC had three in double figures. Johnson led the way with 21 points including three 3-pointers. Brown finished with 14 points with three treys, while Nywesh had 13 points.
NJC was led by Kane-Johnson with 32 points followed by Obi Agbim with 16 and Latrell Jones with 10.
WNCC, 11-7, will be back in action Tuesday night when they host the Air Force Prep at 7 p.m.
NJC 29 60 – 89
WNCC (11-7) 39 39 – 78
WNCC
Carter Brown 14, Rodney Sawyer 7, Jasiya DeOllos 2, Biko Johnson 21, Carl Thorpe 6, Agwa Nywesh 13, Turumbil Zaki 6, Them Koang 9.
NJC
Quincey Jewett 7, Obi Agbin 16, Axel Henry 8, Cyler Kane-Johnson 32, Donta Dawson 5, Jared Adams 9, Rashon Barron 2, Latrell Jones 10.