CASPER, Wyo. – The Western Nebraska Community College women's basketball team came up short of back-to-back titles, falling to Casper College 85-75 Saturday in the finals of the Region IX tournament in Casper, Wyoming.
With the win, Casper earns the automatic berth in the NJCAA national tournament March 19-24 in Lubbock, Texas. For the Cougar women, who dropped to 39-4 on the season, they will have to wait until Monday to see if they will get an at-large berth. At-large teams and seedings will be announced Monday morning via livestream on the NJCAA website.
Despite the setback, head coach Chad Gibney was pleased with how his team played.
"I am proud of the group that we have," he said. "They represented us really well in the classroom, on the floor, in the community. They were a tightknit group that would do anything for each other. It was good to see a team that was so selfless and willing to sacrifice for one another."
Gibney is hoping the girls get another chance with an at-large berth. For now, it is a wait-and-see situation for the women. But, Gibney said, if they do go to nationals in back-to-back years, it would say something about the program.
"It would show that we are starting to get recognized nationally and that we are not only prestigious regionally but also someone to be reckoned with on a national level," he said.
Saturday was just not in the cards for the Cougar women. Casper led from start to finish in the contest. Casper held a 15-12 lead after the first quarter. WNCC cut the led to 15-14 in the second quarter, but just couldn't get any story of scoring spree going.
"We never got a basket or a stop when we really needed to to put some game pressure on them," he said. "We did play a decent game. They hit some timely shots and we didn't hit any. It just seemed when they needed to make a play they did so. They are a good basketball team."
WNCC trailed 38-23 in the second quarter before closing out the period on a 7-0 run behind two treys from Merle Wiehl to trail 38-30 at halftime.
The third quarter saw WNCC cut the lead to four points, 44-40, and even five points, but Casper always had an answer to lead 58-49 after three.
The fourth quarter saw both teams put up points with the two squads coming on 53 fourth quarter points. Casper outscored WNCC 27-26 in the final 10 minutes.
Karli Seay led the way with 30 points, including 9 of 11 from the charity stripe. Wiehl added 17 points with five 3-pointers, while Melisa Kadic had 11 points.
WNCC 12 18 19 26 – 75
Casper 15 23 20 27 – 85
WNCC
Melisa Kadic 11, Merle Wiehl 17, Jaleesa Avery 8, Anastacia Johnson 4, Giovanna Silva 3, Olivia Wiberg 2, Karli Seay 30.
CASPER
Bruna Vila Artigues 20, Paula Orenes Sanchez 11 Ashlie Larson 3, Mya Jones 8, Lucie Hoskiva 24, Caroline Rivera 4, Nerea Baena 2, Natalia Panufnik 6, Emily Robertson 7.