Lady Indians top North Platte to start region play

The McCook Community College women came out strong at home against North Platte Saturday, raced to a 36-12 first-half-lead and held on for a 57-41 win to open Region IX South play.

“We’re 1-0 in region and we took care of business at home and those are solid things for us to build on,” said MCC Coach Brandon Pritchett. “We made some shots early on to set a tone in that first quarter.”

“We fouled way too much, and that might be a result of having so many days off and finally playing against someone other than ourselves,” said Pritchett. “We only gave up 12 points in the first half and eight of them came from free throws.”

After leading by 24 points at intermission the Knights outscored MCC 16-10 in the third quarter and 13-11 in the fourth.

“I didn’t like how we started the second half. North Platte was out-playing us, out-hustling us, getting lots of rebounds. We have to take care of those things,” said Pritchett.

Sophomores Laia Izquierdo Altimira (Barcelona, Spain) and Carolina Garcia Perdomo (Islas Canarias, Spain) led MCC with 10 points and nine points respectively and both hit two 3-pointers as part of their scoring output. Altimira had four rebounds, three assists and two steals. Perdomo led the Lady Indians with five rebounds and had three assists.

Freshman Nevaeh Lucero (Thornton, Colo.) scored seven points, sophomore Johanna Gerlach (Hachborn, Germany) chipped in six, and MCC got five points each from sophomores Miriam Wahlqvist (Helsingborg, Sweden) and Jada Kemm (Henderson, Colo.). Eleven players scored for MCC.

“We had a really balanced effort today as far as our scoring went,” said Pritchett.

Shooting statistics were not available.

Ligia Thortvedt led the Knights with 13 points and Aliyah Herron added 10.

North Platte goes to 3-12 on the season.

“This was a good first win for us to start the semester and to start the region but we look back at how the third quarter went and we just can’t be satisfied how we played,” said Pritchett. “We have to come back in practice a lot harder, a lot better and push each other and be ready to go for two more home games next weekend.”

MCC improves to 8-9 and the Lady Indians will continue the homestand next weekend with games against Otero (1-12) Friday starting at 5:30 p.m. and Saturday against Trinidad State (2-13) at 2 p.m.

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