Laramie County men take down MCC at home 80-75

The McCook Community College men's basketball team played another tight game down the stretch Saturday but came up on the short end of an 80-75 decision to Laramie County Community College.

"Once again we played hard but we just didn't execute late in the game like we needed to," said MCC Coach Jacob Brandl.

The coach pointed to a critical point with 1:07 left in the game. MCC was down 76-73, got a defensive stop, but gave up an offensive rebound and fouled the Golden Eagles in the process. The free-throw shooter missed on the front end of a one-and-one, and once again MCC gave up an offensive rebound.

"Those are the things that are just killers and that's not a toughness issue, that's just a lack of execution and we have to get better," Brandl said. Specifically he'd like to see fewer turnovers and see his team take fewer bad shots. In Saturday's contest LCCC took advantage of those quick transition buckets on MCC mistakes.

"And just because we lost I don't think it was a bad game," Brandl said. "We got some good minutes again from some guys and some production from the bench and at times we executed well but not at key times and that's what's hurting us right now."

Four MCC players scored in double-figures led by 16 points from Beni Fungula (Stockholm, Sweden), 15 each from Mykel Thomas and Shemar Dennis (Worcester, Mass.) and 12 from Julian Lual (Calgary, Alberta)

MCC shot 50.8 percent from the field made nine of 23 3-pointers (39.1 percent) and was just four of six from the free throw line.

LCCC shot 50.7 percent from the field, 21.4 percent on 13 3-pointers and seven of 13 from the line. Xavier McCord scored a game high 35 points for the Golden Eagles.

Lual and D'Andre Dennis (Charlotte, N.C.) both had seven rebounds. MCC was credited with a 42-28 rebound edge.

MCC goes to 1-2 on the season and head to Colby Monday for a rematch with the Trojans (4-1) who opened the season Nov. 1 in the Peter and Dolores Graff Events Center with an 83-81 win over MCC.