Fort Scott defeats MCC women in weekend finale

The Fort Scott Community College women downed McCook Community College Saturday in the final game of the Cobblestone Hotel & Suites Thanksgiving Classic at the Peter and Dolores Graff Events Center. The Hounds won Saturday 67-54.

"Fort Scott came in today and played really, really hard," said MCC Coach Brandon Pritchett. "And really that's what we need to learn to do is compete hard every play."

The Hounds led 19-12 after the first period, but MCC responded with a 9-2 run to start the second period to tie the game at 21-21 with 4:05 left in the second quarter. Fort Scott outscored MCC 10-0 the rest of the way to take a 31-21 at the half, then poured it on with a 24-7 edge in the third period.

MCC had its best offensive period of the weekend scoring 24 fourth-quarter points and held Fort Scott to 12.

"I thought one of the bright spots of the game was the last two minutes of the game where we showed a little bit of life, and hopefully we can focus in on that in preparing this week," Pritchett said.

Fort Scott shot 41.3 percent for the game, 36.4 percent on eight-for-22 3-pointers, and 57.1 percent from the free-throw line on 14 tries.

MCC shot 37.5 percent from the field, missed all 11 shots from distance and went 15 of 16 from the charity stripe (93.8 percent).

Redshirt freshman Taryn Lindsey (Fountain, Colo.) made all 12 of her shots from the free-throw line to lead MCC with 16 points on the afternoon. Freshman Natalie Harmata, (Sydney, Australia) was the only other MCC player reaching double-figures in scoring with 10.

MCC held a 37-33 rebound edge and turned the ball over 13 times.

Fort Scott goes to 6-4 on the season.

MCC slips to 2-8 and will be home Friday and Saturday against a pair of Region IX north opponents. On Friday at 5:30 p.m., MCC hosts Laramie County Community College and on Saturday Eastern Wyoming comes to town for a 2 p.m. tipoff.

In the first game of the day, Western Nebraska knocked off No. 5 New Mexico Junior College 63-54.

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