SCOTTSBLUFF, Neb. - The Western Nebraska Community College women’s basketball team was outscored in the fourth quarter 28-19 by Colorado Northwestern Community College, but hit clutch free throws down the stretch to earn the 61-56 win Friday in the Cougar Classic.
The first game of the Cougar Classic saw No. 4 Dodge City Community College register a 67-52 win over No. 11 Salt Lake Community College at Cougar Palace.
Saturday’s schedule will pit Dodge City against Colorado Northwestern at 11 a.m. followed by the Cougars taking on Salt Lake at 1 p.m.
WNCC head coach Ryan Davis said it wasn’t the best performance, but the Cougars did lead from start to finish.
“We didn’t play very well. I think we kind of got in a spin cycle of one of those games where we kind of started good and then we relaxed and thought we were going to just blow a team out. We let them hang around too long,” he said. “We didn’t play well, but I do think that we’ve played seven scrimmage games against really good teams and won most of them. It was a very abnormal way we played today.”
While the Cougars didn’t play their best, they did show a lot of tenacity on the court in holding the lead from the start and leading 26-18 at halftime. It was the first game jitters in many ways and Davis isn’t concerned about that since they had eight freshmen and just one returning sophomore play tonight.
“I don’t know if I’m too concerned that that’s the way we’re going to play the rest of the way. You just have to get the first game out of the system and just go on for tomorrow,” he said. “There’s a lot of jitters. There is nine freshmen, so everybody wanted to put their good foot forward. Friends, some of their family here, host families, so there is some pressure and I think they felt that early on.”
Both teams didn’t shoot the ball well in the contest. WNCC shot 30.5 percent from the field and buried just 6-of-23 3-pointers. Colorado Northwestern shot the same from the field, 30-5 percent, but buried 8-of-31 from beyond the arc.
WNCC had two in double figures, led by Ella Chesta-Carty with 19 points and seven rebounds followed by sophomore Zozefine Sipolina with 16 points with three triples and 7-of-11 from the charity stripe.
Casper’s Brynn Sybrant had a good game as well, tallying nine points with six rebounds. Charisma Johnson led the team on the boards with 10 rebounds, while Celina Donyo had nine rebounds.
WNCC led 12-4 after one period and pushed the lead to 17-6. The Cougars led 25-13 on a Sybrant bucket and led 26-15 before CNCC’s Taylor Jones had an old-fashioned 3-point play for the 26-18 halftime lead.
WNCC started strong in the third quarter has they led 35-21 after back-to-back triples from Juseana-Rae Delatori and Sipolina. After buckets by CNCC, WNCC scored seven straight points to lead 42-25 and settled for the 42-28 lead after three.
The fourth quarter saw CNCC open the 10-minute quarter with 15 straight points to just three for WNCC to cut the deficit to 45-43. The big play came from Cimonie Martinez, who scored seven points including a 4-point play. It stayed just two points deficit until 53-51. WNCC’s Sybrant had four straight points for a 57-51 lead and then Chesta-Carty hit 4-of-6 free throws for the 61-56 win.

CNCC 4 14 10 28 – 56
WNCC 12 14 16 19 – 61
CNCC
Shyann Farbes 4, Cimonie Martinez 10, Cassandra Perez 1, Natalie Pineda 8, Natlie Neuhaus 6, Phoenix Sweat 4, Taylor Jones 23.
WNCC
Celina Donyo 5, Veralyn Aviles 4, Charisma Johnson 2, Zozefine Sipolina 16, Ella Chesta-Carty 19, Juseana-Rae Delatori 6, Brynn Sybrant 9.

WNCC men fight back, but come up short against Snow

SCOTTSBLUFF, Neb. - The Western Nebraska Community College men’s basketball team showed a lot of grit in their season opening game with Snow College on Friday.
WNCC outscored the Badgers 54-49 in the second half and cutting a 16-point deficit down to four with 17 seconds to play before falling 95-89.
WNCC will have another contest Saturday when they host Dodge City Community College at 6 p.m. Snow College will face Casper College at 4 p.m. on Saturday.
WNCC head coach Roybell Baez was proud of his team for the way they came back and never gave up.
“There is no moral victories but, you know, we’re down five guys and five rotation guys. We have a bunch of freshmen out there with a couple sophomores,” Baez said. “I just think we did a good job. It wasn’t a good job of like scoring; it was just a good job of continuing to fight. As a head coach, you just want to see fight. Snow is literally one of the best teams in the entire country. They are super talented with a super world coach and we could have literally just put our heads down and just got beat by 30 or 40 like we did last year at Snow. But our guys fought we hung in there.”
The fight was evident in the second half. WNCC trailed 81-65 with about five minutes to play. With two minutes to play, Snow led 91-78 and that was when the Cougars outscored Snow 11-4 and made it 93-89 with 19 seconds to play on a Isaiah St. Preux triple. The big play followed as Snow missed two free throws with 17.8 seconds, but the Badgers got the rebound and converted one free throw.
Baez said that rebound by Snow after the miss was a crucial juncture of the game.
“There’s a lot of things that you can go back and look and say, oh, we will do this differently, but I’ll say this, we have a really good group of kids,” he said. “They are here to play basketball and for me personally, I just want to coach good kids. We have a good group of kids who really love each other. They believe in each other, and they’re resilient. I’m proud of them. Again, no moral victories; we just have to come back tomorrow (Saturday) and try to go 1 and 0 tomorrow. “
Snow jumped to a 26-8 lead in the first half and led 43-26. WNCC came back and outscored Snow 9-3 in the final minutes of the first half to trail the Badgers 46-35 at halftime.
WNCC sliced the deficit to 49-41 early in the second half on a Toms Linis 3-pointer. Snow came right back and went on an 11-0 run to lead 60-41. That was the crucial run of the game.
Snow shot 58 percent from the field and connected on nine triples. The Badgers were 18-of-35 from the free throw line. The Cougars shot just 38 from the field but connected on 17 3-pointers. WNCC hit 11 triples in the second half. The Cougars were also just 20-of-33 from the free throw line.
Linis led the Cougars with 23 points, including six 3-pointers. WNCC also had three other players finish with double figure scoring. Xavier Kirkpatrick had 18 points with four 3-pointers while St. Preux and Viktor Lukic-Gavric each had 12 points.

Snow 46 49 – 95
WNCC 35 54 – 89
SNOW
McCaden Adams 28, Sam Sivulich 4, Brock McClure 26, Aaron Bliss 8, Kyle Lemke 12 blake Bahr 1, Keagan Caton 5, Sean Felts 11.
WNCC
Isaiah St. Preux 12, Viktor Lukic-Gavric 12, Amare Jackson 7, Dorin Nguema 4, Toms Linis 23, Xavier Kirkpatrick 18, Noah Jones 5, Melchi Egbeyemi 8.