CASPER, WY – A slow start in the opening 20 minutes dug a hole too deep for the Laramie County Community College women's basketball team to climb out of on Thursday night, as they fell to Casper College 75-63, dropping to 9-12 overall and 2-3 in Region IX North action on the season.
The two sides didn't see either side break away in the opening minutes until a 5-0 run from the Thunderbirds into the first media time out gave the home squad a 12-6 lead. LCCC closed the gap slightly to 14-10 on a display of offense inside from Blanche Toualeu, who finished the first half with 10 points, but Casper didn't waver and answered with a 7-0 run on the way to a 19-11 lead after a quarter of play.
The offense for both sides slowed in the first few minutes of the second quarter, but the zone pressure from Casper led to several turnovers in the middle of the quarter to push the lead to a game high 30-16 forcing an LCCC timeout with just over five minutes remaining.
Both teams finished the quarter off with similar efforts to bring the score to 35-21 at the half, and Head Coach Ayana McWilliams said the response to the slow start was one she was happy with.
"I thought our defense was pretty solid and honestly, we just went through a rough scoring patch. At the end of the day the girls fought, and the second half was much more like the game we were hoping for."
The second half started out with the Thunderbirds immediately going on a 5-0 run to build the lead to a game high 19 points, but that would be the end of their dominance in the game.
From there, LCCC would close the gap to a nine-point game after going on a 20-10 run and with just 2:22 left in the third, closed the lead to 50-41, in major part to a 13-point, nine rebound quarter from Lylah Spring.
"We came out of the locker room and handled (their pressure) well and made the adjustments that we asked them to make and found ourselves in the ball game," McWilliams said.
Unfortunately, foul trouble caught up to Spring with a pair of late fouls sending her to the bench and Casper would rebuild the lead to 56-44 going to the fourth quarter.
Missing Spring didn't affect the Golden Eagles offense in the opening minutes though, with Kelly Megown and Toualeu both leading the assault in her place to trim the game to a five-point deficit with four and a half minutes to play on a Megown drive.
"When we believe and are aggressive offensively, you know, they are here for a reason, and they just have to believe that. They started to drive to the basket and we started to steal some momentum there and we just ran out of gas," McWilliams said.
After a timeout, the Thunderbirds answered with a 6-0 run to regain their double-digit lead, and from there it became a matter of clock management for Casper, holding LCCC at arm's length to seal the win, 75-63 and drop the Golden Eagles to 2-3 in conference play.
The team was led by Spring who finished with 20 points and 12 rebounds, including 8-9 from the free throw line.
Toualeu added 18 points and Kelly Megown finished with 11 to round out the Golden Eagles in double figures.
LCCC struggled from three point range in the game, only making 2 of 16 from deep, and was only able to shoot 36 percent from the field, compared to a 6-17 night from deep for Casper and a 41 percent clip from the field.
The Golden Eagles did get to the free throw line 29 times in the game, making 21.
Turnovers and rebounds both were in favor of Casper College, including a plus-five advantage on the offensive glass.
LCCC returns to action on Saturday afternoon when they make the trip to Rock Springs to battle the Western Wyoming Community College Mustangs at 2:00 pm. More information can be found at www.golccc.com, and there will be a watch party for the event held at Westby Edge Brewing in Cheyenne.