Cougar notes: WNCC women open regional with first round game Saturday at home

                The Western Nebraska Community College women’s basketball finished the regular season at 20-10 and now begins the real season with the first-round of the Region IX tournament happening this weekend.

                The Cougars, who finished second in the South sub-region with a 10-4 record, will begin the tournament with a first-round home contest on Saturday, March 7 at 1 p.m. against Laramie County Community College. LCCC is the North seventh seed. The winner advances to the 3-day Region IX tournament March 12-14 in Rock Springs, Wyoming.

                Western Wyoming Community College won the North sub-region because of tiebreakers as Western Wyoming, Northwest College, and Gillette College all had 8-4 sub-region record.

                The Cougars first round contest will be one the team can’t take lightly as Laramie County finished the season at 9-19 and their last win was a 78-67 win on February 4 against Casper College. The last time out, the Golden Eagles lost to Central Wyoming College 81-76 in overtime on March 2.

                The players and coaches realize how important this first game is since only eight teams will advance to bracket play.

                “This is the most wide open the region tournament has been since I have been coaching,” WNCC head coach Ryan Davis said. “You can make a case for a lot of teams to either upset someone or make a deep run. It will be tough. The teams that play with a purpose, refuse to lose, find a way, and are most connected are going to advance.”

                Western Wyoming and Lamar Community College earned first-round byes for winning the sub-regions and are automatically in the quarterfinals. The rest of the teams will play a cross sub-region first-round games with,

                Besides WNCC hosting LCCC on Saturday, other first found games will pit (S3) Otero hosting (N6) Eastern Wyoming College; (S4) McCook hosting (N5) Casper College; (N4) Central Wyoming hosting (S5) North Platte; (N3) Gillette College hosting (S6) Southeast Community College; and (N2) Northwest College facing (S7) Northeastern Junior College.

                All the games will be played Saturday afternoon except the Central Wyoming and North Platte game, which will be played Friday night.

                Davis said his team needs to stay locked in come Saturday, something they did last Saturday in a win over NJC on the road.

                “We need to be locked in early in the game on the defensive side of the ball,” he said. “We are best when we get stops and play in transition. We have worked on this a lot lately but being connected and all on the same page is a big factor to our success as well. Last Saturday against NJC was the most connected we have been all year and it showed with how the game went.”

                WNCC has played LCCC twice this season back in November when the Cougars won 71-55 at Cougar Palace on November 4 and then won 74-70 in overtime on November 29 in overtime.

                If they win they will place the winner of the Gillette and Southeast contest, teams they have played twice. WNCC defeated Gillette 71-62 at home on December 14 and the lost to the Pronghorns on the road 69-54. As for Southeast, WNCC defeated the Bobcats 82-65 at Cougar Palace and then needed a last second shot by Ella Cresta-Carty to down Southeast 83-80 on the road.

                Davis said they have to stay confident to win in the tournament.

                “Playing loose and with a purpose are the keys,” Davis said. “Win or go home so there is built in pressure to those situations, but for us we have played Laramie County twice, then if we win, we will have played Southeast and Gillette twice. So, brushing up on those teams we know what we are getting into so just going out and being confident in our abilities and leaning on each other early in the tournament.”

                Last year, WNCC won the south and got to host the Region IX tournament. The Cougars fell in a heart-breaking semi-final match to Western Wyoming a year ago by a point.

This year, the north hosts and the tournament will be in Rock Springs, Wyoming. The winners’ this weekend will play quarterfinal games on March 12 with the championship slated for March 14. The Region IX winner will advance to the NJCAA national tournament on the campus of McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana, March 24-31.

The complete tournament bracket should be released sometime Wednesday.

WNCC men hope to make some noise at regionals

                The Western Nebraska Community College men’s basketball team enter the Region IX Tournament with plenty to gain and nothing to lose when they open play this Saturday on Powell, Wyoming.

                The Cougars will travel this weekend for a first-round game against Northwest College, a team that finished second in the North sub-region with an 8-4 record and 19-11 overall.

                WNCC went 5-9 in the South sub-region and 9-21 overall.

                Saturday’s first-round game will tip off at 4 p.m. in Powell, Wyoming, with the winner advancing to the 3-day Region IX tournament that will held at Northeastern Junior College in Sterling, Colorado, March 12-14. NJC and Laramie County Community College received a bye into the quarterfinals for winning the sub-region titles.

                The winner of the WNCC and Northwest game will face the winner of the (S3) North Platte hosting (N6) Central Wyoming game in the quarterfinals on March 12 at 5 p.m.

                Other first round games on Saturday include (S2) Lamar Community College hosting (N7) Western Wyoming Community College, (N3) Casper College hosting (S6) Southeast Community College, (S4) McCook Community College hosting (N5) Eastern Wyoming College, and (N4) Gillette College hosting (S5) Trinidad State College.

                It will be the first time WNCC and Northwest will have played this season. The last time the two teams played each other was in last year’s quarterfinals of the regional tournament when the Cougars won 86-67 in Gillette, Wyoming.

                The winner of the men’s Region IX tournament will qualify for the NJCAA national tournament in Hutchinson, Kansas, March 21-28. The last time the Cougar men competed at the national tournament was 2018 and the last time the Cougars played in the Region IX finals was 2024.