MCC women drop a pair at home

McCook Community College’s Kelly Snelling (2) runs into some tall traffic at the Graff Events Center Friday.

Steve Towery/McCook Gazette

McCOOK, Neb. — The McCook Community College women’s basketball team fell to Eastern Wyoming 63-55 Saturday in the Peter and Dolores Graff Events Center.

The Lady Indians dropped both weekend games to Region IX north teams heading into key part of the season this week to start the Region IX south schedule.

“We have to get better, and that’s what these games were set up to do -- the home and home with Laramie and Eastern were set up to prepare us for our region games so we’ll get to work on that Sunday and Monday and prepare for Lamar to come into town Tuesday,” MCC coach Brandon Pritchett said.

The Lancers blew out MCC 92-56 at Torrington Jan. 23, and threated to do the same Saturday racing to a 20-8 lead 16 seconds into the second quarter.

Eastern Wyoming led 32- 23 at halftime but the Lady Indians chipped away at the lead in the third, enjoying a 22-15 edge to close the game to 47- 45 at the end of the third period.

The Lancers pulled away with a 16-10 fourth quarter edge.

“There were times we’d be making a run and then we’d put them on the free-throw line,” Pritchett said. “We just learn to defend a little bit better but we are improving and that’s what I want to see from this group.”

Gail Whiting (sophomore, Montgomery, Ala.) led MCC with 13 points, eight rebounds, three assists, three blocked shots and three steals. Sophomore Amiya Dartest (Jennings, La.) scored 10 points including a two-for-six night at the 3-point line.

Carla Torrubia Cano (sophomore, Melilla Spain) scored seven points and freshman Alyssa Van Vleet (Oberlin, Kan.) came off the bench with a pair of 3 pointers.

MCC goes to 4-3 and will play 3-4 Lamar Tuesday at 5:30 p.m.

Friday

The McCook Community College Lady Indians came out as cold as the weather Friday and never thawed out in a 53-37 loss to Laramie County Community College.

The Indians scored in single digits in three of the four quarters and shot just 25.9 percent for the game.

While the Lady Indians held the Eagles to just seven third-quarter points they were only able to get any offensive going and were held to seven points themselves.

LCCC took over the game with a 16-8 fourth-quarter advantage and finished the game making nine of 16 3-pointers (56.3 percent).

Jessika Espinoza (El Paso, Texas) led MCC with nine points in this contest.