The 25th-ranked Western Nebraska Community College women's basketball team returned from the holiday break and opened the second semester with a team-like win, registering the 81-47 win over Central Wyoming College on Saturday.
The win was the Cougar's 11th straight as WNCC moved to 14-1 on the season with three big contests next week when they travel to Eastern Wyoming College on Monday before hosting Western Wyoming Community College on Wednesday afternoon. Western Wyoming handed the Cougars their only defeat on the year when they Mustangs won 73-56 at Rock Springs, Wyoming.
WNCC head coach Isaac Lu was pleased with how the team played after three weeks off.
"I thought we had a good showing for this first game back," Lu said. "There are still some things that will take another day or two to get to the level we want to with our press and with our ability to transition offense to defense and defense to offense, bur overall we did well. We made shots. We moved the ball and that is one of our biggest strengths of our team is that we are great at sharing the ball."
The win was important as they get into next week's three games.
"Opening this up with one where we had a good performance and know we have to go and play a tough rivalry game at Eastern Wyoming, which is always a hard game at their place," Lu said. "Then we have to play Western Wyoming and then Casper, so we have to go in and pushing through as a team for this next week."
This win was a good team effort as three players hit double figures and another three came within two or one point of hitting double digits. Plus, the defense stood out with a number of steals.
"It was a good team effort. We had 10 players who got in the scoring column, including three in double figures and two more with nine and another with eight," Lu said. "We shared the ball well. I thought Faith did a good job inside for us and we had multiple players that were able to knock down threes. We have an inside presence, and we can score from the behind the arc as well so we will be able to attack a defense from all different angles."
Both teams opened the contest hitting two 3-pointers. WNCC's treys came from Mackenzie Joseph and Gal-La Font with Font's triple tying the game at six. It was also the start of a 12-0 run that included three straight buckets by Laura Montiel coming off two steals for a 15-6 lead. WNCC led 22-14 after one.
Central Wyoming opened the second quarter with three points to make it 22-17, but the Cougars went on a 14-0 run that saw Faith Walker score six points for a 36-17 lead and led at halftime 41-24 after Helena Kuck nailed a 3-pointer.
The third quarter was back and forth with WNCC leading 48-34 after Central Wyoming's Katelyn Walker buried a 3-pointer. WNCC closed out the third on a 12-2 run that saw Font nail her second trey of the game and Amiyah Donaldson score five straight points for a 60-36 lead.
The fourth quarter saw WNCC lead 65-37 and never looked back after that.
WNCC shot 38 percent from the field and buried seven treys and went 14-of-19 from the free-throw line. The Cougar defense held Central Wyoming to 22 percent shooting. The Rustlers buried eight treys.
WNCC was led by Walker with 18 points, including seven rebounds while Montiel had 12 points, four rebounds, and five steals. Keyla Cervantes tallied 10 points with three rebounds. Font and Donaldson each had nine points while Joseph had eight points.
C. Wyoming 14 10 12 11 – 47
WNCC (14-1) 22 19 19 21 – 81
CENTRAL WYOMING
Ariana Rodriguez 11, Katelynn Walker 11, Esperanza Vergara 12, Emily Sawyer 4, Criselle Mendoza 4, Tiffany Tervort 2, Maren Baker 3.
WNCC
Amiyah Donaldson 9, Helena Kuck 3, Gal-La Font 9, Faith Walker 18, Mackenzie Joseph 8, Keyla Cervantes 10, Laura Montiel 12, Kiley Smich 4, Adelina Urtane 4, Trinity Walker 4.