The Western Nebraska Community College men’s basketball team only trailed once and played a strong defensive contest in registering a 73-65 win over Lamar.
The win snapped a two-game losing skid for the Cougars but more importantly move the Cougars to 1-1 in the South Sub-Region.
WNCC will have another South Sub-Region contest Saturday when they face defending Region IX champions Northeastern Junior College at 4 p.m.
Biko Johnson, who finished with 16 points and eight rebounds, said it was a nice win for the Cougar men Friday night.
“We just stayed together as a team and executed our offense. Defensively, we just held it down,” Johnson said. “The defense was really big for us in grabbing the boards and boxing out their offensive rebounders. That was a big play for us to get the win today.”
Considering the team lost two close games to McCook and Eastern Wyoming last week, holding a talented Lamar team, who lost to NJC on Tuesday night in five overtimes. Saturday afternoon, Johnson said they have to play strong.
“We just have to lock in on offense and defense and trust each other as a team and we will be good,” Johnson said.
More-or-less, the need to play like they did Friday night. Johnson said the Lamar game was a huge win for this team.
“It is a huge win. We are 1-0,” Johnson said. “We just have to go 1-0 every day.”
The defense is what really won the game for the Cougars and both teams played strong defense as it took over three minutes before someone scored in the game when Carl Thorpe hit a free throw. Lamar then hit a jumper to take a 2-1 lead. That was the only lead the Runnin’ Lopes would have all game as WNCC came back to go on a 7-0 run led by a 3-pointer by Carter Brown to lead 8-2.
The first half was tied several times, but each time the Cougars came back to take the lead. The last time the game was tied was at 17-17. Thorpe then hid a bucket and Johnson hit a trey to put the Cougars up 22-18. WNCC led 32-21 at halftime.
The second half saw WNCC jump out to a 44-27 lead behind five straight points from Rodney Sawyer. Jasiya DeOllos later hit two free throws to put the score at 46-34. Lamar sliced the lead to 49-43, but Brown made a 4-point play after hitting a trey and was fouled and hit the free throw.
Late in the game Lamar sliced the lead to 70-65 with a minute to play, but Johnson hit two free throws and then Chancelor Johnson and Agwa Nywesh each had a free throw to seal the win.
WNCC was led by Biko Johnson with 16 points followed by Nywesh with 15. Sawyer had 11 points and Brown had 10. Them Koang led the team on the boards with 11.
Lamar 21 44 — 65
WNCC (11-6) 32 41 – 73
WNCC
Carter Brown 10, Rodney Sawyer 11, Jasiya DeOllos 2, Biko Johnson 16, Carl Thorpe 5, Agwa Nywesh 15, Chancelor Johnson 2, Turumbil Zaki 4, Them Koang 8.
LAMAR
Kipplyn Richvine 4, Kris Cook 17, Tim Montgomery 14, Khalil Haywood 12, Thurbil Bile 5, Kevon Wiggins 9, Josh Jones 4.
