MCC women win 67-40 over Lady Raiders

The McCook Community College women beat Central Community College Tuesday at home 67-40. The win came in Nebraska Community College Athletic Conference play.

“We had a good first half and played well on offense, but we just didn’t hit our 3-pointers,” said MCC Coach Brandon Pritchett. “Overall, we executed our offense and played well on defense, so this was a good win for us.”

The Lady Indians expanded a 19-9 first-quarter lead and outscored Central 26-19 in the second stanza to take a 45-18 half-time lead.

“I felt like there was a lot of complacency in the second half,” said Pritchett. “When you’re up big you have to continue to play hard.”

MCC had a 16-15 edge in the third period and was outscored 7-6 in the final 10 minutes of the game.

The Lady Indians had a 50-34 edge on the boards but have up nine at the offensive end.

“A lot of our freshman aren’t used to playing this many games in a week so it can be grueling, but we rebounded well,” said Pritchett. “We have up a few too many offensive rebounds.”

MCC shot 52.9 percent in the first half, 29.6 in the second half and 42.6 percent for the game. From the 3-point line, the Lady Indians made four of 20 shots on the nighty (20 percent) and from the free-throw line went 11 of 18 (61.1 percent). The team committed 17 turnovers.

Central shot 21.8 percent from the field, went five of 24 from the arc (20.8 percent) and 11 of 26 from the free-throw line (42.3 percent). The Raiders had 18 turnovers.

Sophomore Madara Liepniece (Riga, Latvia) led MCC with 13 points along with five rebounds. Jada Kemm (freshman, Henderson, Colo.) came off the bench to score12 points, hitting two-of-three from distance and grabbing five rebounds. Freshman Johanna Gerlach (Hachborn, Germany) scored nine points.

“Jada came off the bench and had a nice game for us,” said Pritchett.

Sophomore transfer Irene Fernandez Pavesio (Miami-Dade, Asturias, Spain) led MCC with seven rebounds to go along with five points. Freshman Miriam Wahlqvist (Odakra, Sweden) had six points and six boards.

The Lady Raiders go to 1-10 on the season and Tuesday’s loss was their seventh straight.

MCC improves to 6-3 on the season and 2-0 in the Nebraska conference. These same two teams play again Monday in Columbus.

“We’ve got a couple days off and come back to play Central again and they’ll be tougher at their place,” said Pritchett. “They were short one of their players tonight and it looks like she’ll be back on Monday so we have to prepare and be better.”

The Lady Indians close out the semester with five straight road games and begin the spring semester with five more on the road before returning home Jan. 21 against Lamar (5:30 p.m.)

Up-to-date information about MCC basketball including livestream links, schedule, statistics, rosters, photos and more can be found on the MCC Athletics website, www.mccindians.com