CHEYENNE, WY – The Laramie County Community College women's basketball team put a scare into #25 Western Nebraska Community College on Thursday night but a late run by the Cougars down the Golden Eagles for the second straight game, 66-64.

"I think we came out and did a good job on locking into our key's today. We kept everything out front, rebounded when we needed to rebound the ball, we did turn the ball over more that we wanted to but at the end of the day when we beat that press we were aggressive," Head Coach Ayana McWilliams said.

The Golden Eagles opened up the game keeping pace with a high powered WNCC offense that was blistering hot, making five threes, and ended the quarter on a 5-0 run to take a 24-18 lead into the second quarter.

LCCC fell behind by as many as 12 in the second and it seemed the Cougars comfort on their home court would allow them to pull away, but the Golden Eagles responded with a 6-0 run with three minutes to play to close the gap to just four points.

Western Nebraska did end the quarter on a four-point flurry of their own to take a 38-30 lead into the break.

The second half saw a renewed defense from the Golden Eagles that clamped down early on the Cougars and held them without a point for the first five minutes of the game. LCCC tied the game with 4:14 left in the quarter after an 11-3 run and took their first lead of the game 43-42 just a minute later.

From there, the lead swelled to as high as five in the quarter when the Golden Eagles went up 51-46, closing the quarter with a 51-48 lead after late free throws were given to WNCC.

LCCC held the Cougars to just one field goal in the third, and the WNCC offense only came from the free throw line where they went 8-12 from the line.

"We stuck to the gameplan," McWilliams said of the defensive stand in the third. "They made a few threes early in that first half but we stuck with what the gameplan was and we rebounded the ball. My team did exactly what I asked them to do."

The Golden Eagles picked up their biggest lead coming out of the break when Marija Markovic, who was playing for Lylah Spring who was on the bench with four fouls, made an and-one basket for a three-point play to put LCCC up 54-48.

"(Marija) came in and played some huge minutes and just stayed solid allowing the game to come to her and took advantage of the opportunities that were presented to her. Without her effort I don't think we would have been where we were," McWilliams praised.

That was when the Cougars found their mojo from deep again, hitting back-to-back threes from Helena Kuck to tie the game, and eventually take the lead minutes later at 59-58.

A second pair of free throws from Markovic gave LCCC what would be their last lead of the game at 60-59. From there, the WNCC offense went on a 7-0 run, keyed by a three from Gal-la Font and four points from Mackenzie Joseph inside and it seemed like LCCC would have too much to recover.

But with 1:48 to go, the Golden Eagle offense rallied back to close the deficit from the line with a 4-4 performance from the line by Blanche Toualeu and Tamara Smith-White, forcing a timeout from WNCC. Out of the timeout, LCCC forced a shot clock violation and had a chance to tie the game with 11 seconds to go.

Out of a timeout, LCCC ran a play to Toualeu who nearly made the tying layup but was met at the hoop and blocked by Faith Walker to seal the game for the Cougars and drop LCCC to 6-7 on the season with a 66-64 final.

LCCC was paced by three in double figures, led by Toualeu with 16 points to go with seven rebounds and four assists. Spring recorded her fourth double-double of the season with 12 points and 17 rebounds and Kelly Megown finished with 12, including going 2-3 from deep.

The Golden Eagles held the Cougars to just 28 percent shooting from the field and 9-40 from three, while converting on 40.7 percent of their own shots in the game.

Turnovers were the main decider, with the Golden Eagles giving up 24 in the game to just 12 for the Cougars, but LCCC responded by winning the rebounding battle 54-40.

"We are tired of hearing we are close enough, or almost this or that, and that's what I told the team. But we will keep chipping away at it. I think we played a solid game plan through and through and we were in a position we wanted to be in and hopefully they will start to go our way," McWilliams said.

That is back-to-back games against the #26 and #25 teams in the country decided by two points for the LCCC women, and they will be back in action with another top 25 team when they host #17 College of Southern Idaho on Saturday afternoon at 1:00 pm.

The game is Luau Day for LCCC, and all fans who attend wearing a Hawaiian shirt will get free admission. The women's game will be followed by the men at 3:00 pm, and information on both games can be found at www.golccc.com.