No. 5 T-birds knock off MCC women for second straight week

For the second time in a week, the fifth-ranked New Mexico Junior College women downed McCook Community College. On Friday the Thunderbirds prevailed 72-46 on the first day of the Cobblestone Hotel & Suites Thanksgiving Classic at the Peter and Dolores Graff Events Center. Western Nebraska beat Fort Scott 63-53 in the opening game of the classic.

One week ago, NMJC, now 6-0, scored a 58-47 over MCC at Hobbs, N.M.

"There's no doubt they are a top 5 team," said MCC Coach Brandon Pritchett, "But the difference between them and us after one week, is that they were not happy that it was just an 11-point win for them."

NMJC set the pace scoring the first five points of the game before MCC responded to narrow the lead to 12-8 midway through the first quarter. The T-Birds went on a 16-6 run to end the quarter and doubled up MCC 28-14, then stretched the lead to 51-25 at intermission.

"That's the difference between an experienced team and we're very young," said Pritchett. "They played hard and scored a lot of points inside."

NMJC made 19 of 30 first-half shots (63.3 percent) and finished the night shooting 53.6. The T-Birds went three of 11 from the 3-point line (27.3 percent) and nine of 12 from the free-throw line.

Vanessa Jurewicz (sophomore, Stockholm, Sweden) led MCC with 14 points. Freshman Gemma Gruettner Bacoul (Berlin, Germany) scored seven points.

MCC shot 37 percent for the game, made two of 12 shots from the 3-point line and 10 of 14 from the free-throw line (71.4 percent). MCC was outrebounded 30-26 and committed 24 turnovers compared to 12 for NMJC.

"There's a lot of things we have to get better at execution-wise," Pritchett said.

The Lady Thunderbirds improve to 6-0 and will take on Western Nebraska Saturday at 1 p.m.

MCC goes to 2-7 and will play Fort Scott at 3 p.m. Saturday.

For all the up-to-date information on MCC women's basketball this season and all sports including schedules, statistics, rosters and photos, please visit the official website of MCC Athletics at mccindians.com