Indians push No. 17 Lamar until last seconds

from mccindians.com

McCook -- The McCook Community College Indians used the momentum of breaking a four-game slide last Monday to take down NJC 83-77 and putting No. 17 nationally-ranked

Lamar on the ropes before ultimately falling to the high ranked Runnin' Lopes 83-77. McCook is now 12-10 on the year and 3-7 in Region IX play.

MCC heads to the road for two crucial Region IX games on Friday and Saturday, starting with Western Nebraska.

The Indians need to win both, if they hope to host a Region IX Tournament 1st Round game. The Indians will be back in the Peter & Dolores Graff Events Center on Feb.15 when Northwest Kansas Tech heads to McCook.

Throughout most of the night against #17 Lamar, it looked the Indians were going to pull the upset. MCC had a lead of 12 in the first half, as well as a 40-31 halftime lead, which saw six lead changes, and an eight point lead with five minutes left in the game, but it wasn't enough to stop the highly ranked Runnin' Lopes.

In that first hal, Sharkey was big with 14 first half points on 5-9 shooting, while Lewis Diankulu started another big night with 8 points and 7 rebounds in the half.

MCC would only shoot 18% (2 of 11) from deep in the second half, negating the quality work done on the defensive end, by forcing 25 turnovers and 13 steals.

Diankulu would collecting another double-double finishing the night with 23 points and 11 rebounds, while Sharkey would finish with 18 points and Torrey Mayo would round out the double digit scoring for MCC with 13 points, while adding 5 assists.