A season ago the North Central Missouri College women’s basketball team found themselves fighting for a national tournament berth in a district full of nationally ranked teams.
Due to COVID, the Pirate women were moved East to a district featuring eventual national champion Lake Land Community College, who was ranked third at the time. Despite a No. 10 national ranking, North Central saw its season end in the district championship game.
“We have used last year’s loss as motivation all season,” North Central head coach Jenni Croy said. “After winning the region we talked about not being satisfied with just getting to this district championship again. We revisited that feeling of walking off the floor last year as Lake Land celebrated. We wanted that to be us celebrating.”
With 2022 came a return to normalcy in the realm of the NJCAA. Another Region 16 championship placed North Central back into its traditional district format where they would face off with the Region 2 champion from Arkansas with a trip to the national tournament on the line.
Perhaps as atonement for the way things fell last season, the Pirates’ opponent Saturday in the Central Plains District championship was Southern Arkansas University Tech, an unranked team that had eliminated a pair of nationally ranked teams on its way to the Region 2 title.
The 17th-ranked Pirates had little trouble with the un-ranked Rockets, routing their foes 87-54 to punch their ticket to the NJCAA Division II National Tournament for the fourth time in the program’s history.
NCMC landed a big blow in the first quarter, taking control, but SAU Tech responded with a near equal run in the second quarter to cut the Pirates’ lead to 41-39 at the break.
“We put in a matchup, amoeba-type zone this past week knowing we may not be able to guard [SAU Tech] in man,” Croy said. “They hit a couple corner threes and we weren’t rotating quite right so we went man. Then they went on their run. At half, we talked about guarding the ball screens differently in man and then coming out of the locker room [assistant coaches] Lesli [Collins] and Salem [Croy] pulled me aside and said ‘go back to the zone’ so we drew up how to defend the ball screen in the zone and with two minutes left on the halftime clock we pulled the girls in and made that adjustment.”
This time when North Central went on a run there was no response from the visitors. The Pirates piled up points down the stretch, aided by three technical fouls from a frustrated Rockets’ team, going on to take a once competitive game by 30-plus points.
“We discussed we needed to get ‘stop scores’ and leave no doubt about winning this game,” Croy said. “The first five minutes of the second half was key for us. We came out in the press and they executed to a ‘T’. We knew we had to control the boards as well and the girls really boxed out well. We played really well together in the second half and the girls hit some big shots.”
North Central saw all five starters reach double figures with Region 16 player of the year Nora Ford leading the charge. The Pirate point guard scored a team-high 21 points, adding seven rebounds, six assists and four steals in the win. Angel Wiggins followed with 17 points and Kennadie Crowe added 16 points with three assists. Jasmine Taylor had a double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds and Maci Moore rounded out the Pirates’ double-digit performers with 11 points and eight rebounds.
With the win, North Central improved to 24-5 overall on the season.
The Pirates will now await the NJCAA Division II National Tournament, which will be held March 15-19 in Port Huron, MI.
“Our goal for the National Tournament is to show we belong there,” Croy said. “It’s a tough slate of teams, but I know this group can compete with anyone there. We are excited to get this opportunity.”
Seedings for the tournament will be announced today (Tuesday) at 3 p.m.