TORRINGTON – The Eastern Wyoming College women’s basketball team opened the home portion of the 2021-22 schedule with a pair of wins over McCook Community College and North Platte Community College over the weekend.
“We’ve been tweaking things,” EWC women’s coach Alicia Hawkins said. “We’ve dribbled the ball too much, but now we are doing a better job of moving the ball and finding good shots. We are finally catching on.”
On Friday evening, the Lady Lancers opened the game on an 8-0 run, forcing McCook to call a quick timeout, only two minutes and 10 seconds into the contest.
It was a lead which EWC never surrendered in an 84-72 victory, avenging the season-opening loss to the Lady Indians back on Nov. 5.
Eastern Wyoming kept McCook at bay for much of the game, but midway through the third quarter, the Lady Indians connected on a 3-pointer to tie the contest at 47 apiece.
It proved to be as close as MCC came to seeing the lead for the entire 40 minutes.
On the ensuing possession, EWC sophomore Janette Hanni countered with a triple of her own to break the brief tie.
EWC was able to pull away from McCook over the final 15 minutes for the 12-point victory.
Freshman Rosa Revueltas led the Lady Lancers with 23 points, while Hanni had 19. Freshmen Angela Lucio and Ana Soler had 12 and 15 points, respectively.
The Lady Lancers shot 52.5% (32-of-61) from the floor, while limiting McCook to 45.8% (22-of-48) shooting.
The next day, it took Eastern Wyoming an extra five minutes of gameplay to knock off North Platte 76-65 in overtime.
In the extra period, the Lady Lancers scored the first nine points, outscoring North Platte 14-3 in overtime.
Prior to the extra period, EWC led by as many as seven points at 57-50 with 5:22 remaining in the game.
North Platte scored the next eight points to take a 58-57 lead with 1:49 remaining. It was the Lady Knights’ first lead since the 4:40 mark in the first quarter.
Over the final four minutes, the teams swapped the lead three times.
North Platte’s lead reached as many as three at 62-59 following an old-fashioned 3-point play, but with only 3.8 seconds left on the clock, Hanni connected on her third triple of the game, ultimately forcing overtime.
It didn’t take long for EWC to go back in front for good.
Only 28 seconds into the extra period, Soler scored her 14th and 15th points of the contest, and it proved to be the first of 14 points the Lady Lancers scored in overtime to pull away for the double-digit victory.
Late in the contest, Soler and Revueltas both fouled out of the game for the Lady Lancers.
“With our bench, we are so much smaller than our opponents, so we have to be smart with our fouls,” Hawkins said. “We did get into foul trouble, and we have to limit our self this season from doing that. Our bench stepped up, and I’m proud of them today.”
The Lady Lancers (6-6) wrapped up play for the month of December on Tuesday evening in Trinidad, Colorado against Trinidad State College. Eastern Wyoming women return home Friday, Jan. 7, 2022 against Northeastern Junior College. Tipoff is scheduled for 6 p.m.
