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MCC women fall to tough Colorado foe
McCOOK, Nebraska -- The Otero Junior College women have one of the top teams in the National Junior College Athletic Association's Region IX. The McCook Community College women gave the Colorado team all it wanted in action Saturday, Jan. 8, at MCC's True Hall gym.
Otero held off the host Indians for a 59-54 win in McCook's first action following a three-week holiday break.
Otero raised its season record to 11-2, while MCC fell to 11-5.
McCook head coach Ben Smith was very pleased with his team's effort. The Indians were playing without sophomore captain Donell Betts, who suffered a season-ending knee injury in MCC's last game in December before the Christmas break.
"The girls are really disappointed with the result," Coach Smith said after Saturday's game. "But I look at the process and the effort that they put forth. We're coming into a different situation this semester, one of our starters, a team captain out with an ACL knee injury."
Smith said his team made adjustments with Betts sidelined.
"This whole week we focused in on making those adjustments and what we needed to do differently schematically. We're having to get a lot of reps by some people that are still learning how to play college basketball. But tonight's effort was really good. We went down to LaJunta (Colorado) and played them (early this season) and they mopped the floor with us pretty good. They beat us by 17 points.
"To come in here and have a chance -- a couple of those bounces go our way and it's a different story. The kids did everything they needed to do to put us in a position to win. A call here, a call there, a bounce here, a bounce there, and it's a 'W' instead of an 'L' -- I look at it terms of overall effort and the will to win, and I'm really, really pleased with that tonight."
Tight game throughout
The first half was close all the way. MCC used an 8-0 run late in the half to build a 27-23 lead at the break.
McCook stretched the lead to 32-25 early in the second half on a basket by Shakes. Otero rallied and took a six-point lead with seven minutes remaining, but the Indians fought right back to knot the score at 51-51 on free throws by Diamond Murray and Davina Jefferson, plus and steal and layup by Jefferson.
Otero scored seven straight points to lead 58-51 with 1:30 left. Shakes hit one of two free throws for MCC, then the Indians got the ball back with a traveling call on Otero with 37 seconds remaining. Shakes drove the lane and passed to Jefferson for a basket with 29.4 seconds left to pull MCC within 58-54.
Otero hit one of two free throws with 22 seconds to go, then MCC missed a shot and Otero rebounded, and the visitors ran out the clock for the win.
Jefferson scored 13 points and Shakes added 10 to lead McCook. Tracy Fosterling had 20 points for Otero.
The MCC women travel east Tuesday, Jan. 11, to face the Hastings College junior varsity in a 4 p.m. tip-off.