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Northwest’s Bench Making Game Impact
After back-to-back losses against Casper and Gillette, the Northwest College men’s basketball team battled back into the win column last week, defeating Region IX rivals Little Big Horn College and Miles Community College to even their conference record at 2-2.
In both games, the Trappers’ bench shined, taking advantage of their opportunities and settling into their roles on the team.
“I’ve been saying it all year: with this group, each night it’s going to be somebody different,” said NWC head coach Brian Erickson. “We had five guys in double figures against MCC, and three of them came off the bench.”
NWC 88, MCC 73
Carrying over the momentum of a big win against Little Big Horn College earlier in the week, the Trappers (14-6 overall, 2-2 in conference) overcame a quick start by Miles Community College to outlast the visiting Pioneers (7-12, 0-4) by a 88-73 score on Saturday.
NWC had five players in double figures, and for the second straight game, the Trappers’ bench came up big on the stat sheet.
“We had our moments, but for the most part I thought we played really, really well,” Erickson said. “We’re getting there. Sometimes you play good for about 20 minutes, and as the season goes on you hope to get to 40 good minutes. But for sure we took a step, we were in the 30s tonight where I thought we played really well on both ends of the floor.”
MCC scored the game’s first five points before Levi Londole out-muscled a Pioneer defender for a run-stopping dunk. After getting stuck at 9-4, the Trappers made an 11-point run, sparked by a Blake Hinze 3-pointer.
Both teams continued their aggressive play, though NWC began to slowly pull away, led by Powell native Marshall McArthur’s 10 first half points.
“We tried to execute, find gaps,” said McArthur, who finished the game with a team-high 14. “Defensively, we’ve been working on our rotations, making sure we’re helping each other and getting to the right spots.”
The Trappers’ Damon Leach continued his offensive hot streak, hitting back-to-back shots to increase the lead to 18 points. MCC managed two more buckets before the buzzer, and NWC went to the locker room with a 42-27 lead.
“I’m pretty proud of how the team executed against the zone, MCC went zone the entire game,” Erickson said. “McArthur and Carter Baxter did really well. The big thing was just being fundamental, head fake, pass fake. Both of those guys did a great job underneath.”
The Pioneers started the second half on a 13-4 run to cut NWC’s lead to six, 46-40. Londole finally stopped the bleeding, throwing down his second dunk of the night to kill MCC’s momentum. The Trappers found their groove once again and Leach made the most of his minutes, blocking a pair of shots and scoring three baskets in a row to put NWC up 56-44.
“The last three or four games, I’ve thought Leach has played great,” Erickson said. “When we played Casper, I thought he had some good minutes, same thing against Gillette. He had a big game against Little Big Horn. He’s changed a lot; I think a lot of it is confidence.”
A 10-2 run gave the Trappers their largest lead of the game, 66-46, with just over nine minutes left. The Pioneers cut NWC’s lead to nine before NWC’s Skyler Zabriskie shut the door, hitting back-to-back 3-pointers with under two minutes to play.
The Trappers finished with 10 3-pointers, and out-rebounded the Pioneers 43-27. Hinze finished with 13 points, including three 3-pointers, while Powell native Carter Baxter chipped in 11 points and had a team-high four assists.
Londole and Leach finished with 10 points apiece; Sukhjot Bains was a bucket shy of a double- double with 10 rebounds and eight points.
MCC’s Montenia Nelson led all scorers with 29 points, while teammate Adoum Mbang finished with a double-double, netting 10 points to go along with 12 rebounds.
NWC shot 57 percent on free throws, 45 percent on 3-point shots and 51 percent from the field, compared to MCC’s 61 percent on free throws, 37 percent on 3-point shots and 46 percent from the field. The Trappers had 13 turnovers compared to 16 for the Pioneers.
“We had 21 assists, which means we played really unselfish basketball,” Erickson said. “It was a really good effort in that respect.”
NWC 101, LBHC 73
The Trappers rebounded from two losses in a big way on Jan. 18, dominating Little Big Horn College (1-14, 0-4) from start to finish on the Rams’ home court and winning 101-73.
Every player on the NWC roster saw significant playing time, as the bench accounted for over half of the team’s points. The Trappers had four players score in double figures, led by freshman Luc Lombardy with 21 points, including three 3-pointers. Damon Leach recorded a double-double, scoring 18 points and snagging 15 rebounds. Seth Bennett chipped in 13 points, followed by Levi Londole with 12.
Jonathan Koud contributed nine points and five assists, while Sukhjot Bains finished the game with seven points to go along with 10 rebounds and a team-high seven assists.
LBHC’s Davean Yazzie led all scorers with 33 points, followed by teammates Stuart Grant with 29 points and Clarence Little Wolf with 25.
For the game, the Trappers shot 49.5 percent, compared to 44.2 percent for the Rams. NWC was a dismal 29.4 percent from the 3-point arc, but nearly 60 percent from the free throw line.
The Trappers distributed the ball well, dishing off 22 assists as a team, compared to only eight by the Rams. NWC also dominated on the boards, out-rebounding LBHC 53-19.
NWC travels to Rock Springs Thursday to take on Western Wyoming Community College, followed by a trip to Riverton Saturday for a game against Central Wyoming College.
“We’ve got two road games now, and both teams are very, very disciplined,” Erickson said. “They’re really going to be physical and get after us. We have to change our mindset a little bit, go from preparing for zone and getting back to man principles offensively. Defensively, we have got to be able to guard for a longer period of time. These teams can take a shot clock down to almost zero. We haven’t played a lot of teams quite like these two.”
Both games will be broadcast online starting at 7:30 p.m. To watch the game against Western Wyoming, click on the Live Stream link on the webpage https://www.westernwyoming. edu/athletics/broadcasts.html
The link to watch the game against Central Wyoming is https://www.youtube.com/c/ WyomingPBS/live