The North Central Missouri College men’s and women’s basketball teams split a pair of games with Southeastern Community College on Tuesday at the Ketcham Community Center. The men beat SECC, 73-57, and the women lost, 64-55.
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The North Central Missouri College men’s and women’s basketball teams split a pair of games with Southeastern Community College on Tuesday at the Ketcham Community Center. The men beat SECC, 73-57, and the women lost, 64-55.
NCMC Men
The North Central men found themselves down 31-29 after the first 10 minutes of the game. The pace favored Southeastern, which likes to push the ball up the floor.
“We played their game during the first 10 minutes,” NCMC Head Coach Steve Richman said. “Once we slowed it down and started playing our game, we pulled away from them.”
North Central led at halftime, 43-38. The Pirates stepped up the defense in the second half, allowing only 19 points.
“I told the guys at halftime we will not win the game if we allow 38 points in the second half,” Richman said. “If they scored 76 points I told them we would lose, and we would have, but in the second half we played at our tempo.”
Jared Boone had 18 points to lead NCMC. Karl Stupnianek had 14 points and Thalen Shiver added 13 points. NCMC hit 28-of-45 from two-point range.
“Before the game I looked up our stats from the first time we played SECC,” Richman added. “We went to their place and lost 104-87. That shows how far our defense has come. The guys are starting to buy into what we are doing and it shows on the court.”
The men improve to 15-11 and they will host Central College’s junior varsity tonight at 7:30 p.m. at the KCC.
NCMC Women
The North Central women ran into a tough SECC team. The Lady Pirates led 26-25 at the end of the first half.
Burg led the Lady Storm with 15 of her 22 points in the second half as SECC outscored the Lady Pirates, 38-30.
“We simply got outworked and didn’t play very well,” Head Coach James Arnold said. “Loose balls, rebounds, everything went to the team in blue.”
Tiara Johnson and Shelley Rennison led the Lady Pirates with 15 points each. Amber Vandevender had nine points and Kristen Buhrmeister chipped in eight points.
“You know you can make mistakes, miss some shots and not play well, but if you get outworked, it’s going to end up hurting you,” Arnold said. “We scheduled five Division I teams this season with the hopes that they would test us and help us for the post-season,” Arnold added. “I think it is going to pay off. We have just five losses this season and one of those is a Division II loss. So we need to take this game, Moberly and the other Division I’s and really learn from them.”
The Lady Pirates fall to 22-5 overall and travel to Moberly tonight.