Northwest College

News Archive (2019-20 and older)

NWC Lady Trappers Go 2-0 At Big Horn Federal Shootout

Off To Best Start In A Decade

Two recent wins put the Lady Trappers’ record at 9-4 — the best start to a season for the Northwest College women’s basketball program in at least 10 years. 

NWC hosted the Big Horn Federal Shootout over the weekend, coming away with wins over Dawson Community College 109-58 on Friday evening and against Rocky Mountain JV, 83-65, on Saturday. 

NWC 109, DAWSON 58
NWC’s 109 points against Dawson Community marked the second game in a row in which the Lady Trappers cracked triple digits. The weekend before, against Tohono O’odham Community College, NWC scored 113 points.

Head coach Janis Beal said she feels like this team has the potential to score around 100 points in a majority of the games. 

“When we’re playing hard and things are clicking and we’re getting after it defensively, the sky’s the limit with this team,” Beal said. 

Against Dawson, the Lady Trappers played hard, were clicking and getting after it defensively, she said, with every member of the team putting points on the board and having at least one rebound. Nine out of the 12 players had at least one steal and one assist. 

Kira Marlow led with 22 points, scoring 15 in the first half. The coach said Marlow “really did a good job kind of igniting us on the offensive end.” 

Four other Lady Trappers scored in double digits. 

The next highest scorer was Samantha McCrorey, who came off the bench to score 14 points. She also led the team in rebounds with seven — four offensive and three defensive. 

“She’s just a physical tough kid. [I] thought she finished well and did really good off the bench for us,” Beal said of McCrorey 

 Dani McManamen scored 13 points and had five defensive boards. 

Alexi Payne, who also came off the bench, had 12 points while starter Julynne Silva scored 10. 

As a team, the Lady Trappers outshot the Lady Buccaneers in field goals with a 61.9 shooting percentage, compared to 30.4 percent for Dawson. NWC sank 72.7 percent of its free throws in 33 trips to the line; Dawson shot 70.8 percent while at the charity stripe 24 times. 

In 3-point shots, the Lady Buccaneers outshot the Lady Trappers 50 percent to 31.8 percent. 

“We didn’t defend the three very well,” said Beal. 

Dawson hit six 3-pointers in the first half out of nine attempts but the Lady Trappers responded in the second half, allowing only five attempts with the Lady Buccaneers only making one. 

On the boards, NWC outrebounded Dawson 40-21 and the Lady Trappers had 16 steals. 

Tayla Sayer, who came off the bench, led the team in assists with five and also had six points and six rebounds. 

Beal said she was happy that “about half of the shots scored were off of a pass” and called the game a “good team win.” She also felt things the coaches had been working on with the team had come to fruition. 

“It’s really fun as a coach to have worked with them on something and then see them be successful with it in a game,” Beal said.

The only slight critique Beal had of the game was the number of turnovers. 

“Those are some of the things we still need to clean up,” Beal said. NWC had 26 turnovers — some of them were unforced, the coach said — and Dawson had 37. 

“When you’re scoring 109 points, you’re going to have more possessions,” Beal added. “The more possessions you have, the more chances you have for turnovers.” 

NWC 83, ROCKY MOUNTAIN JV 65 
On day two of the Big Horn Federal Shootout, NWC tipped off against Rocky Mountain JV, coming away with a 83-65 win. 

“They’re not a bad team; they have some kids that can shoot the ball well,” Beal said of the Lady Bears. 

The Lady Bears had four players score in double digits and as a team they shot 37.3 percent from the field, 26.7 percent on 3-point shots and 85 percent from the free throw line. 

The Lady Trappers had three players score in double digits and shot 41 percent from the field, 40 percent at the arc and 73 percent from the free throw line.

“It’s tough to put two real high-intensity energy games together,” Beal said. “I thought we did a really good job with that.”

Beal added that the team didn’t have the little extra step they had the night before and that’s where the game got a little bit close.

Going into halftime, the score was 41-26, NWC, with the Lady Trappers leading by as many as 20 points in the second quarter. In the third quarter, Rocky Mountain JV came out ready to play, outscoring the Lady Trappers 23-22 to make it 63-49 going into the final quarter. 

Dallas Petties led the team with 25 points and 10 rebounds (split evenly between offense and defense) for a double-double.

“I thought she did a really good job for us, just with her aggressiveness on the offensive sides of things,” said Beal of Petties. 

Also scoring in double digits were Marlow with 12 and Silva with 10. 

Silva and Payne were tied with six boards each, and Kaylee Brown and Marlow finished with three steals apiece. 

Next up for the Lady Trappers are three games on the road. Today (Thursday), NWC will travel to Williston State College with game time at 2:30 p.m. 

On Friday, the Lady Trappers will play Dawson Community College at 5:30 p.m. and on Saturday, they’ll play Stonechild College at Dawson at 11 a.m. 

Beal said that this weekend, combined with the two wins at the Big Horn Federal Shootout, is important to hopefully gain some momentum going into the winter break. 

“It’ll be a good test to go play them [Williston and Dawson] on the road,” Beal said. “Get a little bit of toughness-tested that way.” 

NWC has beaten both Williston and Dawson at home already this season. The win over Williston was 88-32 on Nov. 10.

After this weekend, the Lady Trappers will be off from competition until Jan. 10.