MCC Women get No. 3 seed; will host Lamar CC Saturday
The McCook Community College Women's basketball team, which finished in a second-place tie in the Region IX South Division, lost a coin toss Wednesday and for seeding purposes dropped to No. 3, and will now host a first-round play-in game Saturday against Lamar Community College. That game is set for 2 p.m. at the Peter and Dolores Graff Events Center.
MCC finished the season 17-12 and went 6-4 in the south division of Region IX, and ended up tying with 6-4 Trinidad State Junior College (9-18 overall.)
Western Nebraska (26-1, 10-0) finished first in the standings and are ranked No. 4 in the latest National Junior College Athletic Association Top 25 poll. The Lady Cougars and Trinidad State received first-round byes and move on to the Region IX tournament that begins March 3 in Casper, Wyoming.
With the coin-toss, the third-seeded MCC team will take on the No. 6 seed in Lamar, (1-9, 7-19). MCC swept the season series with the Runnin' Lopes winning the first game 67-52 in McCook Jan. 11 and winning in Colorado 51-46 on Feb. 11. MCC went 10-4 this year at home.
MCC went 7-2 in January and after winning three of the first four games in February lost a pair of games last week – including a 62-53 loss at home Friday to Trinidad -- before winning Saturday at home against Otero, 65-64.
MCC is averaging 64.6 points per game and give up an average of 64.6 points per game. The team is shooting 40.3 percent from the field, and 30.8 percent on 3-points and are ranked 13th in the country shooting 71.6 percent from the free-throw line. MCC averages 16.7 turnovers per game.
Defensively MCC's opponents are shooting 37.9 percent and 27.7 percent from the 3-point line.
Point-guard Vanessa Jurewicz (sophomore, Stockholm, Sweden) leads MCC offensively averaging 14.2 points per game. The transfer from Northeastern Oklahoma A&M made 50 of her 159 attempts from the 3-point line (31.5 percent) and made 83 of 106 free throws (78.3 percent.)
Sophomore Maite Lara Garcia (Sant Joan Despi, Spain) is averaging 11.3 points and 5.8 rebounds per game. In her second year with MCC having transferred from Concordia University-Portland, Garcia shoots 48.0 percent from the field, and 70.6 percent from the line.
Three other players are averaging just under 10 points per game. Sophomore Sonia Sato (El Paso, Texas/Wayland Baptist University) averages 9.7 points and 7.3 rebounds per game. Alyssa Van Vleet (Oberlin, Kan.) averages 9.4 points and 4.7 rebounds per game, made 35.0 percent of her 3-point shots and 90.4 percent of her free-throw attempts, which was second best in all of NJCAA Division I.
Sophomore Carla Torrubia Cano (Melilla, Spain) came back for a third season at MCC under the Covid-19 provision. She averaged 8.9 points and 6.6 boards per game. She shoots 44.0 percent from the field, made 28.8 percent of her 3-pointers and was a 67.8 percent shooter from the line.
A win Saturday would send MCC to Casper for the Region IX Tournament where they would face the No. 2 seed in the North Division, Eastern Wyoming (16-11, 6-4 in the north).
Final Region IX South Division Standings
DIV. OVERALL
Western Nebraska 10-0 26-1
McCook CC 6-4 18-11
Trinidad State 6-4 9-16
Northeastern JC 4-6 13-15
Otero 3-9 9-19
Lamar 1-9 7-19
REGION IX SOUTH PLAY-IN SCHEDULE
Saturday First Round Games
Lamar at McCook, 2 p.m.
Otero at Northeastern JC, TBA