CASPER, Wyo. – The Western Nebraska Community College women's basketball team battled, but fell short in the Casper Tip-off Classic Friday to No. 10 Casper College 85-71.

           The Cougars drop to 3-2 on the season and will face another ranked team as they will take on No. 15 Salt Lake Community College on Saturday. Salt Lake opened the Classic when they beat Casper College on Thursday  96-92 in overtime and then defeated Northeastern Junior College on Friday 89-50.

           WNCC was playing short-handed on the night and still competed against the ranked T-Birds. The Cougar women held a 5-4 lead on a Mackenzie Joseph bucket. Casper then went on a 10-0 run to lead 14-5 and later 19-9 before WNCC came back on an Ola Duda bucket and a Joseph trey to trail 19-14. Casper led after one period 21-14. 

           The second quarter saw the Cougars outscore Casper in the first half of the second period as Yara Garca had three points, Joseph had a trey and Shiho Isono had a steal and bucket to bring WNCC to within 25-22.

           Casper went back up 29-22 and led 32-23 before WNCC got the last buckets of the half to trail 32-28.

           The third quarter started out as Casper nailed a trey and then Garcia had a trey. The T-Birds then went up 42-31 and kept the 10-point margin, leading 59-49 after 30 minutes of play.

           WNCC opened the fourth quarter hot as Joseph scored the first five points and then Faith Walker had an old-fashioned 3-point play to cut the lead to 59-55.

           Casper rebounded and went up 72-58 and never let the Cougars back to within single digits the rest of the way.

           Field goal shooting was the difference as Casper shot 49% from the field and buried 12 3-pointers while WNCC shot 39% and made just seven treys.

           Joseph led the Cougars with 21 points including three 3-pointers while Garcia and Duda each had 11 points. Garcia had two treys. 

WNCC        14 14 21 22 – 71
Casper        21 21 27 26 – 85
WNCC
Mackenzie Joseph 21, Ola Duda 11, Yara Garcia 11, Faith Walker 9, Jayla Owen 8, Shiho Isono 8, Emmie Persson-Bandh 3.
Casper
Joslin Igo 19, Julia Palomo-Vicente 16, Logann Alvar 16, Irene  Fernandez De Caleya 12, Sandra Frau-Garcia 9, Claudia Garrido 5, Flora Goed 4, Mariona Cos-Morales 2, Celina Arnlund 2.