SCOTTSBLUFF, NE – The Laramie County Community College women's basketball team battled hard in the first half but couldn't keep up with the offense of Casper College on Friday night, falling 85-58 in the Region IX Championship semifinals at the Cougar Palace.
The Golden Eagles opened the game will all of the momentum on their way to a 21-10 lead midway through the first quarter paced by a balanced attack from Shannon Niles, Halle Hester and Monique Marcetic-Vaotangi.
The Thunderbirds made a late run to trip the gap to 21-15 at the quarter break and eventually would take the lead back in the middle of the second quarter on the strength of their own 9-0 run and neither team was able to pull away by more than two possessions the rest of the way in a tough defensive frame, going to the half with Casper College leading by one 32-31.
The second half seemed to start out the way of the Golden Eagles who started out on a 6-2 run to go in front 37-34. That was when it was Casper's turn to answer and they did to the tune of a 13-0 run to pull ahead 47-37 after a timeout by their coach.
The Golden Eagles never were quite able to find their footing after that, but it was more the offense of Casper than the poor play of LCCC that pulled them away, outscoring Laramie County 30-12 in the quarter to lead 62-43 heading to the fourth.
The final quarter was more of the same and featured the Thunderbirds shooting 58.3 percent from three and 59.5 percent from the field after only shooting 27 percent in the first half, closing out the win 85-58 to advance to the Region IX Championship and end LCCC's season.
Laramie County was led by Hester who finished with 15 points and was joined by Niles (10) and Marcetic-Vaotangi (11) in double digits.
As a team, LCCC didn't shoot poorly, going 40 percent from the field by only took 50 shots to the 77 put up by Casper College and lost the turnover battle 16-8. They also allowed 15 offensive rebounds in the game.
The season is still one to be proud of for the Golden Eagle women, who set a program record with 21 wins in the season before bowing in in their second straight semifinal appearance.
The team will be graduating a strong class, including Hester, Marcetic-Vaotangi, Jamy de Kock, and Nikola Kuzmanovic who were the first full recruiting class for McWilliams who finishes her second season at the reigns of the team.
They will be looking to bring back several freshman starters in Niles and Lylah Spring, as well as Michala Bork who spent much of the second half of the season on the bench due to injury and Maddie Jones who played key minutes off of the bench all season long.