MCC women open basketball slate at home Friday

The McCook Community College women’s basketball team starts the season this weekend with home games Friday and Saturday. On Friday MCC hosts Easter Wyoming at 5:30 p.m. followed with a 2 p.m. game Saturday against Laramie County Community College. These are part of three women’s/men’s doubleheaders over five days.

On Tuesday MCC hosts Northwest Kansas Technical College at 5:30 p.m., but that will be the final home game until a Dec. 7 game against the Hastings College JV’s that will close out the home slate for the pre-holiday portion of the schedule.

MCC returns just four Lady Indians from a team that won the Nebraska Community College Athletic Conference title last season going 5-1, but in Region IX south play the team went 4-6 (12-18 overall) and ended up with the fifth seed out of six teams in the post season tournament and lost in the first round to Northeastern Junior College. Over the summer, the NJCAA awarded two wins to MCC over Western Nebraska because of an ineligible player and so MCC’s official record ended last season at 14-17.

In addition to the four returners, MCC brings in three transfers and four freshmen.

“I think this group has the chance to be good,” said fifth-year coach Brandon Pritchett. “We’re more balanced that we have been in other years with good returners and some solid freshmen. Expectations every year are just to continue getting better throughout the year and take that next step within the region.”

Returners include Noa Iglesias Chorda (Barcelona, Spain), Natalie Harmata (Sydney, Australia), Rebecca Dunn (Colorado Springs, Colo.) and Gemma Gruettner Bacoul (Berlin, Germany). All four players started games last season and played major minutes at various points during the season.

“With those four we have a good core and a good anchor,” said Pritchett.

Last season, Bacoul was selected to the Region IX all-defensive team as a freshman guard and honorable mention for the all-Nebraska Community College Athletic Conference team. She played in 31 games, starting 16. She averaged 7.0 points and 3.5 rebounds per game. She scored 18 points Feb. 20 at Central Community College – her season best – and reached double-figures in 10 games. The 5-10 guard had 37 steals on the season, 14 blocked shots to go along with 217 points and 107 rebounds.

Guard Natalie Harmata (Sydney, Australia) is MCC’s top returning scorer, averaging 7.1 points per game one year ago, shooting 52.6 percent from the floor and 45.0 percent from the 3-point line. She was recently named the team’s recipient of the “Teammate of the Year” award through the MCC Teammate Scholarship program honoring student athletes exhibiting the attributes needed to be a good teammate.

“I think Gemma can step up into that role of a guard who can lead us. Natalie is a playmaker as well and shoots the ball at a high clip from the field and from the 3,” Pritchett said. “They are solid defensively and as rebounders.”

The other two returners are forwards Noa Iglesias Chorda (Barcelona, Spain) and Rebecca Dunn (Colorado Springs, Colo.). Chorda started 22 games as a freshman and averaged 2.6 points, and 2.7 rebounds per game. Dunn started four games and averaged 2.2 points and 2.8 rebounds per game with a field goal percentage of 61.4 percent on 44 shots taken.

“Noah is a play maker and Becca played good minutes for us in that post-forward spot. I’ve really been impressed with her overall approach to the game,” Pritchett said. “She was out of basketball for several years and last year was her first year back and she’s returned this season with a renewed mindset.”

Last season all-Region and all-conference sophomore guards Vanessa Jurewicz and Taryn Lindsey combined to average 27.5 points, 8.2 rebounds and 4.0 assists per game and when they graduated, left MCC scoring a combined 1,282 points over their careers. One of primary objectives in the offseason was to try and find ways to replenish that production from the guard spots.

“We lost a lot of fire power from quality guard minutes from last year’s team, but I think we’ve added some solid guards,” Pritchett said.

MCC’s three new sophomore transfers include two guards in Suzan Sisman (Aarhus, Denmark) and Audra Vine (Thornton, Colo.) and forward Ebba Zalamans ((Stockhom, Sweden.

Vine played at Fort Lewis College, an NCAA D2 program in Durango, Colo. Last season she played limited minutes over 22 games.

“Audra brings experience and maturity at the point-guard position for us, and we needed to find some experience and so we brought in Audra to anchor that down and lead our team from there,” Pritchett said. “She has a methodical approach, gets everyone involved and sees the floor well.”

Sisman transfers from Muskegon Community College, a division 2 school in Michigan. She sat out last season but started 28 games during the 2021-22 season for a team that went 25-6. She averaged 12.6 points, and 2.7 rebounds while going to the free-throw line 124 times and making 78.2 percent of those shots for a team that made it to the national tournament.

“Her being a guard-wing helps us out gives us depth and a scoring punch by both making shots and getting to the rim, because she is more of a physical guard,” said Pritchett.

Incoming freshman guards include Hanne Alvarez Verdaguer (Barcelona, Spain) and Madara Liepniece (Riga, Latvia)

“Madara is really quick and I think will really improve as the season progresses. She is going to be at a different speed that what Audra is and I think they will balance each other out,” said Pritchett. “She brings in this pace and transition and gives us two different looks from that position and I like what I’ve seen when we’ve had both point guards in the game at the same time.”

Verdaguer comes to MCC as a knock-down shooter.

“But coming from Spain the physicality here is something she’s still figuring out,” Pritchett, “She’ll be good rotational player for us and someone who can stretch the defense for us.”

At the forward spot Zalamans arrives at MCC after transferring from Eastern Arizona College (NJCAA, D1) and had a limited role in 19 games but garnered 27 rebounds in 91 minutes played for another team that made the NJCAA national tournament.

“Ebba comes in and gives us great experience at the forward spot and can step out and shoot it, defends well and rebounds really well especially on the offensive glass,” Pritchett said. “She does a lot of the little things well to help us go as well as leadership.”

At the forward spot Pritchett expects incoming freshmen Carlota Aliaga Alonso (Valencia, Spain) and Bri Hunter (Roswell, Ga.) to build their minutes as the season progresses.

“They both play the forward spots, and give us added depth,” Pritchett said. “They both like to rebound and both like to pass out of that four spot.”

Pritchett said he is excited about the make-up of this team.

“They can be challenged and pushed and if they continue those things throughout the year, we can be pretty successful if they allow themselves to be coached and pushed by teammates like they have been,” said Pritchett.

Last season, the team faced a tough schedule early with a relatively young squad. MCC went 1-6 to start the season and fell to 2-10 before winning two of its final December games to finish at 4-11 in the first half of the season. The squad didn't start the 2023 portion of the schedule much better, losing three of its first four games, falling to 5-14.

This year, MCC’s schedule includes three matchups against Division 1 Top 20 teams, and two more against Division 2 Top 20 teams.

“It’s a tough early schedule again,” said Pritchett. “I think the challenge is just to have that mentality from night-to-night and take it one game at a time.”

The Lady Indians travel to Riverton Wyo. Nov. 10-11 for the Central Wyoming Classic. A week later they head to Council Bluffs, Iowa for the Iowa Western Community College Classic taking on a pair of division 2 schools in No. 7 Iowa Western and No. 10 North Central Missouri. MCC’s toughest test comes Dec. 15-17 at Hobbs, N.M. in the New Mexico Junior College Classic taking on three ranked opponents in three days including No. 5 New Mexico Junior College, No. 13 South Plains College and No. 14 Casper College.

In January the team has four games with five more in February.

Pritchett said he expects the region to be tough once again if not better than last year.

“We’ve got some new coaches coming in but overall top to bottom both in the north and south, we’re stronger,” he said, noting that Gillette has reinstated sports and are back in the north division.

“Our expectations are to take it one day at a time, one practice, one game at a time and continue to get better,” he said.

Up-to-date information about MCC basketball including schedules, statistics, rosters and photos can be found on the MCC Athletics website, www.mccindians.com.