MCC women fall short before 'Blue Out'

STERLING, Colo. – The McCook Community College Lady Indians were unable to overcome a slow start Tuesday and dropped a 63-57 decision to Northeastern Junior College.

“Offensive rebounding really hurt us tonight,” MCC Coach Brandon Pritchett said. “We would play solid defense and then give up an offensive rebound.”

MCC trailed by 10 points in the first half and came back to close the game to 29-28 at the end of the first half.

“We didn’t play very good for four quarters, but still managed to take a lead in the fourth quarter,” Pritchett said. “If we put together good quarters, we can be special.”

NJC sophomore Aleksandra Ratnikava (Minsk, Belarus) scored 30 points to lead all scorers.

On Jan. 17 MCC beat Northeastern at home 82-71 on a night the Lady Indians made 16 of 31 shots from the 3-point line (51.6 percent). On Tuesday MCC was limited to five of 21 shots from distance (23.9 percent).

“We have to find our rhythm shooting the ball again,” Pritchett said. “We struggled tonight shoot the 3 and we didn’t make free throws. We capitalize on those two things offensively and it might be a different outcome.”

NJC improves to 11-10 and 3-3 in Region IX south play.

MCC falls to 16-6 and 3-3 in the Region IX south division.

On Friday, MCC is back in the Peter and Dolores Graff Events Center to face Western Nebraska 20-1, and ranked third nationally, at 5:30 p.m. and then host Central Community College (10-10) Saturdayat 2 p.m. for the annual Blue-Out games to raise money and awareness for children with disabilities. MCC spring royalty will also be announced at that game.

For complete coverage of MCC Lady Indian basketball including, schedule, photo galleries, statistics and more, visit the MCC Athletics web page at https://mccindians.com/index.aspx?tab=basketball2&path=wbball

If you can’t make it to the home games follow all MCC home athletic contests on Tribe Watch at https://mccindians.com/sports/2016/11/10/tw.aspx?tab=tribewatch.

Watch for more updates on MCC softball and baseball teams who are playing games this week.