MCC Women top Rattlers in Friday win at home

The McCook Community College women topped Otero College Friday night at home 74-66 to start the second half of the season 2-0.

After a 14-14 first-quarter tie and a 27-27 game at halftime, MCC took a slight edge after three quarters 46-43, then outscored the Lady Rattlers 28-23 in the final 10 minutes.

“I thought we had a really, good defensive night. I know we gave up 66 points which is more than we normally do, but Otero is team with two or three high-level scorers,” said MCC Coach Brandon Pritchett.

Otero’s Itxasne Fernandez Agruello entered the game leading Region IX in scoring at 20.8 points per game and shoots 54.9 percent from the floor. The Rattlers shoot 39.9 percent from the field but on Friday MCC held the team from La Junta, Colo. to 31.3 percent in the first half and 34.7 percent for the game – despite Agruello scoring 24 points on a night when she went eight-for-17 from the field (47 percent)

“We defended when we needed to and got stops when we needed to,” said Pritchett.

Offensively, MCC shot 37 percent in the first half and stepped up hitting 55.6 percent in the second half and made five of seven second-half 3-point shots to finish at six-for-12 for the game.

“It wasn’t pretty offensively, and we turned the ball over 24 times, but I’m really proud how we fought in a must-win region game at home,” said Pritchett.

The Lady Indians shot 46.3 percent from the field for the game.

Sophomore Johanna Gerlach (Hachborn, Germany) led MCC with 18 points, making two-of-five triples and going four-for-four from the free-throw line.

“Jojo stepped up well. We kept it simple and we found the right person in gaps with our offensive sets against their zone,” said Pritchett.

Sophomore Laia Izquierdo Altimira (Barcelona, Spain) had a double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds. Sophomore Miriam Wahlqvist (Helsingborg, Sweden) had six first-quarter points and finished with 10 points and four rebounds.

Freshman Stephanie Nnabuihe (freshman, Newbridge, Ireland) came off the bench to score eight second-half points with five rebounds.

“I couldn’t be prouder of this group how they competed all the way through with all the ups and downs and just fought really hard,” said Pritchett.

The Indians held a 42-31 rebound advantage and went 12 of 18 from the free-throw line (66.7 percent).

This was the first Region IX south game of the year for Otero, who falls to 1-14 overall.

MCC climbs to .500 for the season at 9-9 and more importantly improves to 2-0 in the Region IX standings.

“We’ll clean some things up for tomorrow with a back-to-back region game against Trinidad State. and we have to take them seriously,” said Pritchett.

The Lady Trojans dropped a 54-43 decision Friday in North Platte to fall to 2-12 on the season.

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