Lady Indians end regular season with 85-55 loss to Otero

The McCook Community College women’s basketball team’s regular season came to an end Saturday with an 85-55 loss to Otero Junior College in the Peter and Dolores Graff Events Center.

MCC finishes the regular season 16-14 and 4-6 in the region.

The Region IX schedule concludes next weekend with the post-season to begin the following week. Seedings, pairings and game times will be announced after the season.

Six sophomores were honored prior to the game and included: Suzan Sisman (Aarhus, Denmark), Noa Iglesias Chorda (Barcelona, Spain), Audra Vine (Thornton, Colo.), Ebba Zalamans (Stockholm, Sweden), Rebecca Dunn (Colorado Springs, Colo.) and Gemma Gruettner Bacoul (Berlin, Germany).

Otero came into the game as the second seed in Region IX south and MCC kept pace for most of the first quarter, but trailed 16-13 after 10 minutes.

“I thought we came out and played well in the first quarter,” said MCC Coach Brandon Pritchett.

The Lady Rattlers hit a couple 3-pointers late in the first half and led at intermission, 37-26.

Bacoul Gruettner scored 18 first-half points and became a focus for the Otero defense in the second half and was held scoreless until a late free throw.

“They did a good job against her defensively in the second half denying her looks,” said Pritchett.

Offensively the Lady Rattlers stepped it up and outscored MCC 27-14 in the third quarter.

“They came out in the third quarter and really got after us, making a lot of shots and that changed the game,” said Pritchett.

The Lady Rattlers shot 53.6 percent from the field including a 13-for-22 night from the 3-point line (59.1 percent). OJC shot 12-for-16 from the free-throw line (75 percent).

“Otero made a lot of shots tonight,” said Pritchett. “They had a lot of open looks and knocked them down.”

MCC shot 37 percent for the game from the field, made eight of 22 3-pointers (36.4 percent) and went 13 of 20 from the line.

The coach also said Otero played physical in the first half and when MCC tried to match that physicality it didn’t work.

“We just weren’t smart with our physicality, and our toughness has to get better,” said Pritchett.

OJC outrebounded MCC 36-27.

Bacoul-Gruettner led MCC with 19 points, making four of six 3-pointers. Iglesias-Chorda scored 10 and freshman Madara Liepniece (Riga, Latvia) scored eight points off the bench.

“The Region IX playoffs start in two weeks, we just have to do better all the way around to execute our offense,” said Pritchett.

Up-to-date information about MCC basketball including schedules, statistics, rosters and photos can be found on the MCC Athletics website, www.mccindians.com.