Laramie County men start strong in 73-61 win over MCC

The McCook Community College men couldn't overcome a slow start Friday night and lost at home to Laramie County Community College 73-61.

"We were back to the old ways, spotting a team a bunch of points early and playing catch up," said MCC Coach Jacob Brandl. "And it happened from the very start. On the opening tip-off we didn't get matched up and gave a guy a wide-open look."

The Golden Eagles pushed the lead to 24-14 with 7:34 left in the half and stretched it to 38-23 at intermission.

"We have to come out with more sense of urgency," Brandl said. "I thought our sense of urgency was better in the second half, we had guys stepping into shots, we were screening but we just weren't doing those things in the first half."

LCCC led by 24 points at one point in the second half before MCC cut the margin to 62-53 with 5:20 left in the game on a 3-point shot by Cameron Nyarko, (sophomore, London, England.) He made four of eight shots from beyond the 3-point line and finished with 12 points. MCC made it a 67-59 game with 2:53 left.

"Credit to our guys for continuing to battle, but when you're down 15, 20 points like that you have to extend so much energy to get it back down to six or seven," Brandl said. "But we can't put ourselves into big holes like that because we have the talent to win these games."

MCC outscored LCCC 38-35 in the second half.

Freshman Zeki Cavli (Bodrum, Turkey) led MCC with 15 points, freshman Noah Boyed (Castries, St. Lucia) scored 14 points and led MCC with 12 rebounds. Sophomore Simon Akena (Stockholm, Sweden) scored 13 points. Freshman William Humer, (Sollentuna, Sweden) picked up seven rebounds to go along with six points.

"We needed to be better defensively in the first half because you hold them to 73 points, you feel O.K.," Brandl said.

MCC shot 54.5 percent in the second half and shot 49.2 percent from the field in the game, made six of 21 3-pointers, (28.6 percent) and made seven of 13 from the free-throw line.

LCCC shot 36.4 percent from the field made 10 of 35 attempts from beyond the arc (28.6 percent) and seven of 11 from the line (63.6 percent).

The Golden Eagles improve to 6-3.

MCC falls to 4-8.

"We have to come out with more urgency tomorrow and we can't commit turnovers," Brandl said.

On Saturday, MCC host Eastern Wyoming at 4 p.m.

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