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Teams Face Off To Open Region IX Tourney
The Northwest College women’s basketball team will begin the Region IX tournament in the same fashion it began last season — staring across the court at Northeastern Junior College. The teams, which played multiple times last season, managed to avoid a regular season encounter this year.
“We didn’t play them at all this year,” said Northwest College head coach Janis Beal. “In fact, we never had a chance to see them play live this year. I know they have a lot of sophomores coming back from last season. I would expect a similar team to what we faced last year.”
In that regional tournament game last season, the Trappers gave Northeastern all it could handle. Northwest was within a point with 3:15 remaining before Northeastern closed the game on a 17-5 run to score a 94-81 victory.
This year, Northwest College enters the game with a 14-16 record. Northeastern comes in at 24-8 after finishing second in the Region IX South division. Northeastern features former Powell High School Panther Hannah Pollart, who has had a successful sophomore campaign. Pollart ranks second on the NJC roster in points per game (10.5) and rebounds per game (7.2). She is third in assists at 2.3 per game.
The Trappers, meanwhile, will look to freshman Kennedy Allen, their regular-season scoring leader who averages 15 points and 5.1 rebounds per night. Sophomore Mariah Duran adds 13.2 points per game behind a team-best 56 3-point buckets while sophomore Layana de Souza also averages in double figures with 11 points and a team-best 2.5 steals nightly.
Allen missed a late-season contest due to a concussion, but returned for the team’s final two games and, according to Beal, is good to go for the Region IX tournament. Freshman reserve Leslie Thronburg, another lateseason concussion victim, is similarly cleared to play.
Not all is rosy on the injury front, however. Sophomore Taylor Ryan, a starter in 29 of the Trappers’ 30 games this season, is presently listed as day-to-day with a neck injury. Her availability for Friday’s tournament opener might be a question that lingers all the way until game day.
“She has a neck injury, and it’s one of those things that’s been there for a bit,” said Beal. “It came on stronger since the last game though and she went in to the doctor to get it checked out. It’s not something that you want to mess with, so we’ll just see how it goes. She could be a day of the tournament decision for us.”
Ryan was Northwest’s leading rebounder during the season, pulling in an average of 6.2 boards per game. Her possible absence creates a problem for a Trapper team that was outmatched in the paint against Northeastern last season.
“Rebounding is definitely going to be one of the biggest keys for us,” Beal said. “Northeastern does a great job on the offensive boards. They get a lot of their points on second chance put-backs, so we really need to limit them there.”
The good news, Beal said, is that while Northeastern didn’t graduate many players from last year’s team, the team did lose some of its inside presence to graduation.
“Their post kids aren’t as big as what they had last year,” Beal said. “We might even have an advantage in the post. That’s one area where we match up a little better this year.”
It will be on the perimeter where the Trappers face some challenges.
“Their guards are definitely their strengths,” Beal said. “They have a couple really quick guards that are extremely active defensively. They don’t put a lot of full-court pressure on you, but they love to be active in the passing lanes and wait for you to get lazy in the half-court. They tip a lot of passes and try to get things going the other way off those.”
Northeastern also features some taller guards that could pose match-up issues around the perimeter.
“They have some bigger guards as well,” Beal said. “Some six-footers that could create a mismatch on the perimeter. We’re maybe not quite as big to go out and guard them this year, compared to last.”
The Trappers and Northeastern are scheduled to tip off their Region IX tournament game at 5 p.m., Friday, on the campus of Casper College. The winner earns the opportunity to advance one step closer to an NJCAA national tournament berth and play the winner of the opening round contest between Lamar and Western Wyoming.
“It’s tournament time, so you’re just looking to survive one day and move on to the next,” said Beal. “The biggest thing for us is to come in with that tournament mindset. Everything that has happened before doesn’t matter. Whoever comes to play on that one day can be successful.”