MCCOOK – Jaleesa Avery scored nine of her game-high 16 points in the fourth quarter and the Western Nebraska Community College picked up a 63-58 Region IX South sub-region win over McCook Community College Tuesday in McCook.
While Avery tallied 16 points, Melisa Kadic buried clutch back-to-back 3-pointers in the third period. Kadic finished with 11 points while sinking three 3-pointers.
The win was the Cougars 13th of the season and moved the Cougars to 4-1 in South play. McCook drops to 3-2 in the conference and 10-7 overall.
Interim coach Chad Gibney was pleased with the defensive effort of his squad.
"Defensively we did an excellent job pressuring the basketball," he said. "We turned them [McCook] over 34 times. We need to continue to be aggressive and speed teams up."
WNCC, who trailed just once in the game at 21-20, put together clutch buckets in the contest. Gibney said they need to work on the inside game a little more.
"Offensively we need to feed the post and play inside-out basketball," he said. "We haven't shot the ball very well the last two games. I was proud of the girls making winning plays down the stretch and finding a way to win when the ball doesn't go in."
The Cougars didn't shoot lights out for a second straight game. In Saturday's loss to Lamar, WNCC shot just 19 percent in the second half. Tuesday night against McCook, WNCC shot 29 percent in the first half and was just 3 of 11 from beyond the arc. WNCC heated up a little in the second half, shooting 35 percent and buried four 3-pointers.
The second half play was key, too. WNCC trailed 21-20 late in the second quarter before scoring the final six points to take a 26-21 lead into halftime.
WNCC led by as much as 36-29 in the third quarter before McCook sliced the lead to two, 37-35. That was when Kadic buried her back-to-back 3-pointers for a 43-35 lead. The Cougars would lead 43-39 after three periods.
The second half was a game of runs by both teams. The two squads were tied twice in the final 10 minutes, including 55-55 with under two minutes to play. That was when Avery came up big with a bucket and then came right back down the court and buried a 3-pointer with 48 seconds to play to put WNCC up 50-55.
McCook cut the lead to a one-bucket contest, 61-58 but Bree Paulson hit two free throws at the end of the game to ice the contest.
WNCC had three players in double figures. Besides Avery and Kadic, Paulson finished with 11 points, including going 6 of 10 from the charity stripe and pulling down nine rebounds. Paulson also tallied three blocks.
Kellie Gaston pulled down eight rebounds, while getting five steals and dishing off five assists. Deniz Dalkiran had three blocks as well in the contest.
WNCC, 13-4, will be back in action Saturday when they host Eastern Wyoming College at 5:30 p.m. in a South sub-region contest.
WNCC (13-4) 15 11 17 20 – 63
McCook (10-7) 14 7 16 21 -- 58
WNCC
Melisa Kadic 11, Jaleesa Avery 16, Olivia Wiberg 2, Kellie Gaston 4, Zeynep Canbaz 6, Bree Paulson 11, Anastacia Johnson 5, Deniz Dalkiran 2, Giovanna Silva 5.