The 10th-ranked Western Nebraska Community College women's basketball team received 32 points from Ale'Jah Douglas as the Cougar women topped McCook Community College 97-63 in the South Sub-region opener for the Cougars.
The win was the Cougars' 16th of the season as they move to 16-1 on the season. WNCC will now have a day off before they have a Sunday afternoon contest with Eastern Wyoming College in Torrington, Wyoming, beginning at 2 p.m. for the doubleheader.
WNCC head coach Chad Gibney said he thought his team played well.
"I thought we did a really nice job," Gibney said. "I thought we moved the ball really well. We didn't shoot a lot from the perimeter, but we got in transition and got easy baskets. I was really happy offensively. Then defensively at times I thought we were elite. We have to shore up our rebounding, but I was happy with our performance."
The Cougar and McCook women battled early in the first quarter. WNCC led 8-1 only to watch McCook comeback to cut the deficit to 8-5. WNCC then picked up the defense and outscored the Indians 10-4 the rest of the quarter to lead 18-9 after one.
The second quarter was where the Cougars really shined offensively and defensively. Gibney said he was pleased with the second quarter that saw WNCC open go from a 9-point lead after one to a 24-point lead at halftime.
"Defensively I thought we really stepped up in the quarter," he said. "We really brought the fight to them."
WNCC pushed the lead in the second quarter to 26-11 on six points from Douglas. WNCC went up 33-14 as Shayane Poirot nailed the team's first 3-pointer of the game. Later, Isabelle Cook had back-to-back easy lay-ins for a 39-16 lead. The Cougars kept playing hard to lead 48-24 at halftime.
The third quarter saw the Cougars outscore McCook 25-16 and really never let the Indians get within 20 points the rest of the way. WNCC led 73-40 after three after back-to-back buckets by Douglas.
The fourth quarter saw WNCC lead 95-56 after a Poirot trey with about three minutes to play. The Cougars entered the contest with a 10-game streak of holding their opponents to under 60 points and the question was would the streak go to 11. McCook went on a 6-0 run and hit 60 points with 1:33 to play on a free throw to stop the streak. WNCC won 97-63.
WNCC put 11 players in the scoring column but only one had double figures. Douglas finished with 32 points with two treys. She also had 11 steals in the contest. Amani Brown and Aminata Zie each had nine points while Cook had eight.
WNCC shot 49 percent from the field but were just 26 percent from beyond the arc (5-of-19). Douglas and Poirot each had two treys, while Fields had the other three ball.
WNCC's defense held McCook to just 33 percent shooting and 6 percent from beyond the arc (1-of-17).
The Cougars barely won the rebound battle 44-43. Fields led the way with seven boards followed by Ashley Panem with six.
The big statistic was steals, where the Cougars finished with 25 steals. Douglas had 11 while Panem finished with five and Brown and Fields with three each.
Women's game
McCook 9 15 16 23 – 63
WNCC 18 30 25 24 – 97
WNCC
Ale'Jah Douglas 32, Amani Brown 9, Aminata Zie 9, Martrice Brooks 7, Shanti Henry 5, Ashley Panem 6, Payton Fields 7, Shayane Poirot 6, Isabelle Cook 8, Mia Jaye Sarkodee-Adoo 2, Rashaan Smith 6.
MCCOOK
Vanessa Jurewicz 15, Sonia Sato 8, Shelby Clark 2, Maite Lara Garcia 13, Alyssa Van Vleet 11, Carla Torrubia Cano 14.