Giovanna Silva finished with a double-double and the 24th-ranked Western Nebraska Community College women's basketball team captured their sixth straight win with a commanding 100-55 win over Northwest Kansas Technical College junior varsity Thursday evening at Cougar Palace in the team's first game of 2018.
WNCC, who moved to 13-2 on the season, put four players in double figures in the win that saw the Cougars not miss a beat after a three-week holiday break.
"We knew we had to play hard since it was the first game back and it was a home game, so we knew we had a responsibility," Silva, who finished the game with 16 points and 13 rebounds, said. "We knew we had to play like we did before the break in playing hard and running the floor."
WNCC will look to push the win streak even further as they host two Region IX South sub-region contests Friday and Saturday. The Cougars will battle Laramie County Community College at 5:30 p.m. on Friday in a men's and women's doubleheader. LCCC and WNCC are tied at 2-0 in the South sub-region. WNCC will then host Trinidad State on Saturday at 2 p.m. in another women's and men's doubleheader.
Thursday, though, showed very little rust from the three-week holiday break as all the players suited up found their name in the scoring column. Silva said they only had a short drop off in the game and that was it.
"We dropped off for about one minute in the game, but we picked it up again," she said. "I think we had a good mindset for winning. We want to win regionals and go to nationals and that is our goal. Every game is like a battle."
The Cougars definitely was on top of their game after the first few opening minutes. The Cougars led by a slim 8-7 margin early on and after that was when the Cougars lit things up, outscoring the Mavericks 21-2 the rest of the first half for a 29-9 first quarter lead.
The second half was just as impressive as WNCC built the lead to 40-11 seven points from Merle Wiehl and buckets by Melisa Kadic and Jaleesa Avery.
The Cougars pushed the lead to 46-15 and led 52-25 at halftime.
The second half saw the Cougars continue excelling, outscoring the Mavericks 24-19 to grab a 76-44 lead after three periods.
The fourth period saw WNCC outscore NWKTC 24-11. The Cougars led 88-051 after a four-point play from Kadic and pushed the lead to 98-52 on six points from Sophia Agorakis. Josie Perez put the Cougars into the century mark with a bucket for the 100-55 win.
WNCC was led in scoring by Wiehl with 21 points followed 18 from Kadic and 17 from Avery. Wiehl was 10 of 15 from the field, while Kadic had two treys and seven assists. Avery finished the game with nine rebounds.
The Cougars dominated the boards with 48 boards compared to 25 for Northwest Kansas. The Cougars also tallied 25 assists.
NWKTC JV 9 16 19 11 – 55
WNCC (13-2) 29 23 24 24 – 100
NWKTC JV
Chelsea Clark 19, Daz'ah Richards 1, Kiyah Clark 2, Monique Schuman 2, Mikei Downs 13, Tajh Giliard 4, Destiny Lindsey 6, Tootie Reynolds 8.
WNCC
Melisa Kadic 18, Merle Wiehl 21, Jaleesa Avery 17, Anastacia Johnson 8, Giovanna Silva 16, Sophie Agorakis 8, Olivia Wiberg 4, Karlie Seay 4, Josie Perez 4.