The 25th-ranked Western Nebraska Community College women's basketball team utilized a strong defense in rolling over Iowa Western Community College 70-50 Wednesday evening at Cougar Palace.
The win was the Cougars 19th victory of the season and seventh straight win. More importantly, Wednesday's win showed the team how much they have improved since the November 57-53 loss to Iowa Western in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
"We learned from that game," freshman Jaleesa Avery said. "We learned how to play with each other more. We learned from that loss and we learned from the other three losses so we just used it. We just came out strong tonight."
What they found out is that playing strong defense helps wins games. Make no bones about it, the Cougars defense in the second and third quarter opened up the game. WNCC outscored Iowa Western 42-18 in the middle two quarters.
"I thought our defense helped our offense tonight," Avery, who finished with a game-high 21 points said. "We got many steals and our press stopped them and slowed them down. It helped us score on the other end."
The defense also generated 18 steals, resulting in many transition buckets. Anastacia Johnson led the way with five steals followed by three each from Bree Paulson and Sladjana Rakovic.
WNCC interim head coach Chad Gibney said this was a good team win and hopefully it will help build momentum.
"We just wanted to continue to play Cougar basketball and that is sharing the basketball and playing inside out, pressuring on the defensive end, and making them play our style," he said. "We usually don't worry too much of what the other team does, we worry about what we do and doing it the right way.
"We just wanted to use this as a momentum builder for us. Iowa Western has been ranked in the top 25 for much of the year and to come out and play really well and beat them, hopefully it will give us some momentum going down the stretch."
While Iowa Western has been ranked in the NJCAA polls for several weeks last semester and early January, the Cougars finally have jumped into the poll. Coming in at No. 25, the Cougar players knew they couldn't let that ranking be a distraction.
"When we found out last night (Tuesday night that we were ranked), we were all excited about it but we knew we had to come out and play strong today," Avery said. "I think we did. We executed and we stopped them when we needed to.
"This is a good win and I am glad we got it under our belt. We are going to use this to keep going in the future. We are just going to keep building from it and move on to our next game on Friday."
It is a good win, but early on Iowa Western looked like the ranked team, bolting to a 15-11 first quarter lead. The second story was a different story as WNCC outscored the Reivers 19-8 in a second quarter that defense dominated. Avery and Johnson tied the game at 15-15. After a Iowa Western bucket, the Cougars went on a 12-3 run to lead 27-20 and went into the locker room up 30-23 after a Melisa Kadic trey.
Iowa Western came out of the locker room in the third period and cut the deficit to four, 30-26 on three free throws with 6:55 to play in the period. After that, Paulson buried a trey and Avery had two 3-pointers as the Cougars' defense stifled the Reiver offense. In the meantime, WNCC went on a 21-0 run over the next four and a half minutes to lead 51-26. WNCC led 53-33 after three quarters.
WNCC's defense was a big factor in the game, holding Iowa Western to 39 percent shooting from the field. The Reivers were just 2-10 from the 3-point arc and shot a miserable 42 percent (10 of 24) from the free throw line.
WNCC, on the other hand, shot 43 percent for the game and connected on seven 3-pointers. WNCC was also 82 percent from the free throw line, connecting on 9 of 11 free throws.
WNCC had three players in double figures. Rakovic finished with a double-double of 12 points and 11 rebounds. Avery had 21 points on two 3-pointers while pulling down seven boards. Paulson also sank 13 points including three treys.
Canbaz had a quiet eight points, but also dished off seven assists, while Kadic had seven points with two blocked shots.
WNCC, 19-4, will be back in action Friday when they host McCook Community College in a South sub-region contest. The last time the two teams played, WNCC held on for a 63-58 win.
Avery said they will go to work to prepare for McCook Thursday in practice.
"We only won by five to them last time and we played a bad game," she said. "We shot really bad, but I am confident in my team. I think we will work hard in practice tomorrow and we will be ready for the game on Friday."
Iowa Western (16-8) 15 8 10 17 – 50
WNCC (19-4) 11 19 23 17 – 70
IOWA WESTERN
Zheniah Jackson 2, Lade Adepoju 9, Delia Ania 7, Alicia Mountain 3, Azaria Floyd 9, Melis Ucar 4, Jazza Johns 8, Destinee Tooks 2, Miya Bull 2, Carmen Ramey 3, Ali Verzani 1.
WNCC
Melisa Kadic 7, Sladjana Rakovic 12, Jaleesa Avery 21, Kellie Gaston 2, Zeynep Canbaz 8, Bree Paulson 13, Anastacia Johnson 5, Giovanna Silva 2.