CASPER, Wyo. – The Western Nebraska Community College women's basketball team buried 11 3-pointers and topped No. 19 Casper College 83-68 Tuesday night at the Swede Erickson Gym in Casper, Wyoming.
The Cougars, in picking up the win, moved to 7-2 on the season.
WNCC shot 55 percent for the game and blistered the nets in the second half at 62 percent shooting.
WNCC's 11 3-pointers was also a season high. The Cougars buried five in the first half and six in the second half. WNCC was 11 of 24 from beyond the arc for 46 percent. Zeynep Canbaz buried four treys, while Melisa Kadic had three and Bree Paulson had two.
Canbaz said the team knew what they had to do and that was hit shots.
"Everyone knew we needed to knock down shots today," she said. "We all came out confident and strong and did just that."
Jaleesa Avery said the key was defense.
"Ithink defense was key in this win for us, getting stops and steals lead to good offense for us," she said. "We were patient and ran our offense. We just wanted to play an overall good game and I think that's what we did. We shot the ball really well."
They did just that. Plus they also knew how good a team Casper was from last year, too.
"We knew Casper was going to be hard competiton after last year so we knew we needed to comw out physically and mentally strong right from the beginning," she said. "We knew we needed execution, we needed to knock down shots, and really minimize turn overs."
WNCC shot 55 percent for the game while holding Casper to just 43 percent. The big statistic was Casper was just 5 of 20 from the 3-point arc.
The Cougars were definitely dominate in the win, giving the T-birds their first loss of the season. Casper entered Tuesday, fresh off a 61-60 win over Snow College and a 67-62 win over Northeastern Junior College.
WNCC took control of the game early and never trailed. Anastacia Johnson scored the first bucket on an easy lay-in. Casper then tied the game at two, but the Cougars jumped out to a 19-10 lead on a trey from Kadic and led 19-12 after one quarter.
WNCC kept the lead at double digits in the second quarter, leading 38-26 on another Kadic trey and enjoyed a 43-29 lead at halftime.
WNCC didn't slow down in the third period even though the T-Birds outscored the Cougars 21-16. WNCC led 57-40 at one time before Casper came back to slice the lead to 59-50 after three periods.
The fourth period saw Casper trail 72-64 with a little over four minutes to play only to see the Cougars nail three straight treys to push the lead to 81-64 with two minutes to play.
WNCC had five players in double figures. Canbaz led the way with 24 points on 10-of-17 shooting from the field. Canbaz also dished off six assists.
Also collecting double digits was Sladjana Rakovic with 20 points. Rakovic also had six rebounds and six assists. Johnson and Kadic each had 11 points, while Paulson chipped in 10.
WNCC will be off for a week before they return home to face Northwest College on Thursday, Dec. 1 before heading to the Central Wyoming Classic to face Central Wyoming and Western Wyoming Dec. 2-3.
"We're off for a couple days but we are gonna be ready for practice on Monday," Avery said. "It feels good to have this win but we are back to work on Monday to prepare for our three games next week."
WNCC (7-2) 19 24 16 24 – 83
Casper (8-1) 12 17 21 18 – 68
WNCC
Sladjana Rakovic 20, Jaleesa Avery 5, Bree Paulson 10, Zeynep Canbaz 24, Anastacia Johnson 11, Melisa Kadic 11, Deniz Dalkiran 2.
CASPER
Natalia Panufnik 17, Ruth Nwokora 12, Paula Orenes 4, Marina Fernandez 10, Caroline Rivera 2, Bruna Vila Artigyes 4, Ashlie Larson 3, Rojin Karahan 5, Emily Robertson 11.