GILLETTE, Wyo. – The Western Nebraska Community College women's basketball team opened Region IX play with a strong defensive effort in registering a 53-37 win over Central Wyoming Thursday afternoon in Gillette, Wyoming.

                The Cougars, in posting the win, received a balanced scoring effort, led by Hannah Sparks with 10 points.

                Myriam Garcia came off the bench and poured in nine points, while Kalli Feddersen had eight points.

                Feddersen said while the team played well on defense, they need to pick it up on offense.

                "I think today we played really well on defense, but we weren't aggressive on offensive at all," the sophomore from Rawlins, Wyoming, said. "We got out-rebounded but we got he W."

                Feddersen knows the team has to play better Friday in the semifinals, where they will play Casper College at 5 p.m. Casper defeated Otero 73-59. The other semifinal will pit McCook against Gillette. McCook earned a hard-fought win over Sheridan 72-67, while Gillette escaped Western Wyoming 67-61. The semifinal winners will meet for the championship Saturday at 6 p.m.

                "Tomorrow [Friday] in order to move past we will have to be aggressive all around and everyone is going to have to rebound," she said. "Overall, it was a good win but we need to improve on slot in order to move on."

                The Cougars had a slow first quarter, trailing 10-7 after the opening 10 minutes. Things changed in the second half, outscoring the Rustlers 23-10 to grab a 30-20 halftime lead.

                WNCC kept Central Wyoming at bay in the third period, bolting to a 38-25 lead on a Garcia bucket and leading 43-28 after two Rylee Ward free throws to end the third.

                WNCC pushed the lead to 17 points in the fourth behind two points each from Ward and Sparks before Central sliced the lead to 10, 47-37 with 2:31 to play. The Cougar defense stepped up after that holding Central scoreless while scoring six points to take the win.

                WNCC shot 38 percent to 32 percent for Central. WNCC only made 1 of 11 from beyond the arc compared to 4 of 15 for the Rustlers.

                The area where WNCC excelled was defense, forcing 28 turnovers and picking up 14 steals. Zeynep Canbaz led the team with five steals followed by Feddersen with three, and two each from Sparks and Bree Paulson.

WNCC (25-3)                      7 23 13 10 – 53

Central Wyoming             10 10 8 9 – 37

WNCC

Kalli Feddersen 8, Sladjana Rakovic 4, Hannah Sparks 10, Zeynep Canbaz 6, Bree Paulson 6, Ozge Yarga 4, Rylee Ward 4, Mikayla Gonzales 2, Myriam Garcia 9.

CENTRAL WYOMING

Kyla Paulus 2, Heather Townsend 2, Olivia Elliss 18, Olivia Thompson 2, Jess Underberg 13.