MCC men lose overtime conference game in Columbus

COLUMBUS – The McCook Community College men lost in overtime Tuesday to another ranked opponent. Central Community College, ranked No. 16 in NJCAA Division II topped MCC 80-76 in Nebraska Community College Athletic Conference play.

"It was the same story with our basketball team tonight," said MCC Coach Jacob Brandl. "We didn't put a full game together and paid for it."

The loss sends MCC to 1-9 on the season in a stretch of tough opponents to start the season. Of MCC's first 10 opponents, six are currently rated in the NJCAA Top 25 polls including five in Division 1 and Central CC in Division II. This weekend MCC will play two more ranked opponents in Idaho.

On Tuesday, Central took a 38-33 lead at intermission, but MCC came out hot and went on a 15-4 run to take a six-point lead 6:20 into the second half 48-42 on a jumper by sophomore Martin Poznanovic (Uzice, Serbia). MCC went up by seven at the 12:03 mark on a 3-pointer by D'Andre Dennis (Charlotte, N.C.) to make the score 53-46. The Raiders came back to tie the game at 53 at the 10:06 mark. Both teams were able to take four-points leads down the stretch but couldn't shake their opponent.

"We fought hard but we made too many mistakes that hurt us, not helping the helper and staying on our guy and then switching their split action when we didn't want to," Brandl said.

Julian Lual's (Calgary, Alberta) jump shot with 22 seconds left in regulation put MCC up 68-65 but Central's Caleb Muia sank a 3-pointer with nine seconds left to send the game to overtime.

In the extra period MCC never held the lead and trailed by six points with 2:42 left, but cut the lead to two points with 1:17 left on a jumper by sophomore Damien Perry (Wareham, Mass.) jumper, but that was the end of the scoring for MCC.

"Credit to Central they just made more plays at the end then we did," Brandl said.

MCC shot 40.0 percent from the field, made four of 23 shots from the 3-point line, and made 12 of 18 free throws (66.7 percent.) Central shot 38.2 percent from the field, made nine of 31 3-pointers (29 percent) and sank 13 of 15 shots from the line (86.7 percent). Both teams had 42 rebounds.

Poznanovic had a career-high 23 points to lead MCC in scoring, and grabbed five boards. Lual scored 13 points and had five rebounds. Perry scored 10 points and had five rebounds and five assists.

Freshman Trey Summers (Greeley, Colo.) had a team-high 11 rebounds to go along with seven points. Beni Fungula (Stockholm, Sweden), scored nine points and had eight boards.

No. 16 Central Community College goes to 7-1 and 1-1 in the NCCAC.

"Things don't get any easier for us as we continued our gauntlet of a schedule at the CSI classic with nationally ranked Snow and nationally ranked College of Southern Idaho," Brandl said.

MCC takes on No. 13 Snow College (6-1) Friday at 3:30 p.m. followed on Saturday for an 8:30 p.m. game against College of Southern Idaho (6-1.) The Golden Eagles moved into the top 25 this week. They are 4-0 against Region IX teams with wins over Laramie County Community College, Casper College, Eastern Wyoming and Western Nebraska.