Lady Vikings beat YVCC, WVCC

MOSES LAKE  - The Big Bend Community College (BBCC) women's basketball team got two big wins last week.

The team pulled out a thrilling 65-63 road victory over Yakima Valley Community College Wednesday, and beat Wenatchee Valley Community College in another close game at home Saturday, 57-52. The victories improved the Lady Vikings record to 3-0 in league play and 13-3 overall.

BBCC 57, WVCC 52

The game against the Knights was as tough as they come as both teams played solid ball. WVCC had the upper hand in the first half of play as the team took a 29-26 lead into the locker room at the break.

"We were anticipating this to be another tough match up as Wenatchee was coming in off of a 20-point win against Spokane," coach Preston Wilks said. "And that is exactly how it played out. In our preparation for the game, we felt like we needed to play our zone defense against them as we wanted to make them beat us from the outside since their bigs are their strongest part on their team."

The strategy worked well for the Lady Vikings as the Knights scored just one point over the last six minutes of the first half.

Having so much success with the zone, Wilks decided to stick with it the second half as well.

"It (the zone defense) was working pretty well for us as we were getting good defensive rotations," he said. "So we stayed in it the rest of the way and held them to one for 10 shooting from beyond the arc."

Aliie Kelsey led the offensive attack for BBCC with 12 points. Alli Nielsen added 11 points and three steals. Shelby Scott knocked down eight points, and Jazlyn Nielsen finished with seven points and five rebounds.

"It was a very gratifying day for us overall," Wilks said. "The one thing that has been our strength so far in our league play has been our solid defensive play. The ladies have been working hard at being tough defenders in practices and in our games."

BBCC 65, YVCC 63

The Vikings found themselves in a real barn burner of a game Wednesday as they came away with an exciting two point road win against the Yaks.

"The ladies were really anxious to play this game as we pulled off an improbably 20-point come from behind win at their place last year," Wilks said. "They had great energy and focus to begin the game as we took a 15 point lead in the first half of play." 

YVCC started the game in a zone defense trying to limit BBCC's offensive output. But the strategy backfired as the Lady Vikings drilled six 3-point buckets.

"After we started hitting those shot's they switched to a man-to-man defense and played it he rest of the game," Wilks said. "After that, I felt like YVCC played really hard on defense and it was a great match up the rest of the game."

BBCC  took a 38-32 lead at the half and was up late, but fell behind with a little less than three minutes to go. But BBCC, determined not to let the game slip away, reclaimed the lead with 25 tics left on the clock.

"Tiffany Morris came out from her wing position on our 2-3 zone to steal a pass from beyond the top of the key," Wilks said. "She made an incredible read on that pass and went down for the game winning layup."

YVCC had three more chances to score, but the Lady Vikings defense prevailed. 

"We injected Tiffany into the starting lineup for the first time this season and she really responded with perhaps her best game of her career," Wilks said. "I was also impressed by our point guard play as Allie Kelsey and Jessica Tews only committed one turnover in 40 minutes of play."

Alli Nielsen was the big gun for BBCC with 18 points, shooting 50 percent from the floor.  Morris added 16 points, and  Allie Kelsey and Shelby Scott finished with nine points each.

The Lady Vikings are back on the hardwood this weekend when they travel to Oregon Friday week to take on Blue Mountain Community College, and Saturday to face Treasure Valley.