The 10th-ranked Western Nebraska Community College women's basketball team will be battling Otero Junior College in a key South Sub-region contest Friday night with first place in the sub-region on the line.
The WNCC women are 12-2 overall and 3-0 in sub-region play. The Cougars have won their last seven contests. Otero comes in with a 6-2 and 2-0 in the sub-region. Tip-off is set for 5:30 Friday night with the WNCC and Otero men's teams to follow.
The players know how important of a contest is if they want to host the Region IX tournament in April.
"It's gonna be a big game because It will be a good match up," sophomore Shanti Henry said. "We know they have talented individual players. We just need to shut down their players and run the floor for easy baskets."
The Cougar women have won seven straight since a double overtime, 95-88, defeat to Casper College. During that winning streak, WNCC's closest game was a 72-63 win over Eastern Wyoming College. The last four games, the Cougars have scored 89 or more points, which included three straight sub-region wins over McCook 89-46, Northeastern Junior College 91-46, and Lamar Community College 96-49.
Otero's two sub-region wins included a 62-60 win over McCook and a 70-64 win over NJC.
Henry said her team needs to play strong from the beginning and play good defense to keep winning.
"We don't think about that [the winning streak]," she said. "We just think about getting better every day and working on our weaknesses."
A big reason for the Cougars' high-octane offense is how they run the floor in transition. Plus, they have a multitude of players that score from the outside and in the paint.
"We have good transition offense," Henry said. "We force a lot of turnovers to get extra possession."
The Cougar men will also have a key sub-region contest. The Cougar men are 7-6 overall and 1-2 in the sub-region. Otero comes in at 7-2 and 3-1 in conference play. WNCC captured its first win of the sub-region last weekend when Issad Solano hit a trey at the buzzer to give the Cougars an 86-84 win over Lamar Community College.
Otero will be entering the contest having suffered a 67-64 defeat to NJC on Tuesday. Before that, Otero won three straight sub-region contests, defeating Trinidad State 89-82, McCook 83-71, and North Platte 79-75.
WNCC is one of the highest scoring teams in Region IX, having scored 1,127 points in the 13 games so far. WNCC is second behind Laramie County Community College, who has scored 1,325 points. Otero has scored just 746 points in their nine games.
After Friday, the Cougars will be off for another week when they head to McCook and North Platte on March 12 and 13. The Cougars were slated to play Trinidad State Junior College on Saturday at Cougar Palace, but those contests were postponed because of COVID concerns on the Trinidad State campus.
Men's Region IX Standings
Team Subregion Overall
South
NJC 4-0 9-3
Otero 3-1 7-2
McCook 3-3 8-5
Lamar 2-2 6-8
WNCC 1-2 7-6
Trinidad 1-3 2-5
North Platte 1-4 3-8
North
W. Wyoming 2-0 9-2
LCCC 2-1 5-10
EWC 2-1 7-6
C. Wyoming 1-2 2-8
Casper 1-2 6-6
Northwest 0-2 7-4
Women's Region IX Standings
South
WNCC 3-0 12-2
Otero 2-0 6-2
NJC 2-2 4-6
McCook 2-3 7-6
Lamar 1-3 4-9
Trinidad 0-2 2-6
North
Casper 3-0 13-0
EWC 2-1 6-5
W. Wyoming 1-1 2-9
Northwest 1-1 7-5
LCCC 1-2 7-6
C. Wyoming 0-3 0-9