MCC men, women deal losses to Southeast CC

Nathaniel Mustion/McCook Daily Gazette Left: McCook Community College's Marcus Vontz, a freshman from Cambridge, takes aim at the free throw line during MCC's 85-70 win over Southeast Saturday at True Hall Gymnasium.

The McCook Community College men's and women's basketball teams came away with wins over Southeast CC Saturday at True Hall Gymnasium.

The men won 85-70 and the women won 67-39.

The men had to fight off a slow start as Southeast came out fired up and were up as many as 7 points in the first half.

McCook fought back by playing hard nosed defense forcing Southeast into several turnovers.

Brandon Butler led the way offensively in the first half scoring a team-high 15.

McCook continued to play tough defense in the second and held on to the lead despite some poor free throw shooting.

Cambridge's own Marcus Vontz was the key for the Indians in the second half grabbing some timely offensive rebounds and hitting some big shots as Southeast tried to get back into the game.

The Indians improved their conference record to 4-1.

"We watched a lot of film on these guys this week," said MCC coach Ty Orton. "When we played them earlier this year even though we won they outworked us.

"We knew we had to come out and work harder than them this game and I think we did. We had some guys come off the bench and provide the spark that we needed, Adam Vaden and Marcus Vontz really played well."

Brandon Butler led the Indians in scoring with 21 points. Marcus Vontz had 12 points and 14 rebounds.

Andre Goldberg and Craig Wamsley each added 11.

The MCC women's team played one of its best games of the year to get the win.

MCC opened up the game shooting well from all over the floor, jumping out to a big lead from start and never looked back.

As always, women's coach Michelle Orton had her team playing hard especially Erin Nealy, who was all over the court, out rebounding players that outsized her by several inches.

MCC rallied around her and got the big 28-point win.

"This was a team we had lost to by 10 earlier this year," said MCC women's coach Michelle Orton. "We were coming off of a win tonight and we just built on that momentum and stepped up tonight.

"We knew that we were a more talented team we just needed to play like it and we did."

Leslie Fahey shot 4-for-7 form 3-point range and led the Indians in scoring with 15. Nealey added 11 points and grabbed 17 rebounds.