Fourth-quarter run fuels Lady Indian win
CHEYENNE, Wyo. – A 12-0 run to start the fourth quarter helped the McCook Community College women surge past Laramie County Community College Saturday for a 74-64 win.
“We played another solid game-start-to-finish today,” said MCC Coach Brandon Pritchett. “We started a little slow but once we settled down, we executed well.”
MCC got down 5-0 early but fought back to lead 18-15 at the end of the first period but was tied 31-31 at intermission. Trailing 47-46 to start the fourth period, the Lady Indians exploded for a 28-point quarter to square the season series with the Golden Eagles, who had topped MCC 65-59 in McCook Nov. 1.
A pair of 3-poiners by freshman Marissa Evans (Barrow, United Kingdom), a pair of baskets from freshman Nevaeh Lucero (Thornton, Colo.), and a pair of buckets by sophomore Johanna Gerlach (Hachborn, Germany) helped key the fourth quarter surge which included a 16-1 advantage over the first 3:59 of the final period.
The Lady Indians had 20 assists in the game.
“We shared the ball extremely well,” said Pritchett.
Gerlach led MCC with 17 points. Freshman Claudia Serrador Cortazar (Trapagaran, Spain) came off the bench to score 14 points making seven-for-eight shots in the post with four rebounds.
“We have a lot of pieces that can score the ball and when we share the ball it just opens things up so much,” said Pritchett. “Today it was Jojo and Claudia that stepped up to fill the scoring role. Claudia kept it simple and just made shots in the paint for us. Jojo led with her defense that transitioned into easy offense for us.”
Lucero went three-for-three from the field and three-for-four from the free throw-line to score nine points. Evans made two of three triples for six points. Sophomore Laia Izquierdo Altimira (Barcelona, Spain) and Carolina Garcia Perdomo (sophomore, Islas Canarias, Spain) both scored eight points.
Sophomore Miriam Wahlqvist (Helsingborg, Sweden) led MCC with seven assists to go along with four points and four rebounds. Sophomore Jacelyn Jorgensen (Paxton, Neb) went three-for-three from the field and two-for-three from the line for eight points.
MCC had 38 bench points.
“Our bench was great tonight. Jace made a huge basket just before halftime. Marissa made two big threes in the second half for us. And Nevaeh was a huge lift offensively making big time shots,” said Pritchett. “She played so calm for us and just goes out and hoops.”
MCC shot 58.6 percent from the field in the second half and 53.6 percent for the game. From the 3-point line MCC was five of 13 (38.5 percent) and made nine of 14 free throws (64.3 percent).
The Golden Eagles shot 32.1 percent from the field, 26.3 from the arc, and went 25 of 34 from the line (73.5 percent). The team out-rebounded MCC 36-33.
“This was a physical game and I thought we had to overcome a lot of adversity on the road to pull out a really good team win,” said Pritchett.
LCCC goes to 6-7 on the season.
The Lady Indians improve to 6-7. MCC continues its string of six straight road games next weekend with a pair of games in the New Mexico Junior College Classic at Hobbs, N.M. On Friday the Lady Indians play 3-6 Ranger College (Ranger, Texas) at 5 p.m. then take on 10th-rated New Mexico Junior College (10-1) Saturday at 4 p.m.
The fall slate of games wraps up at the Peter and Dolores Graff Events Center Dec. 16 with a 4 p.m. game against Gillette College (7-4).
Up-to-date information about MCC women’s basketball including livestream links for home games, schedule, statistics, rosters, photos and more can be found on the MCC Athletics website, www.mccindians.com