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Northwest Trappers Finish Regular Season 20-10
An overtime victory at Gillette College and a bitter home defeat at the hands of Western Wyoming closed out the men’s basketball regular season for the Northwest College Trappers. Northwest finishes as the No. 5 seed from Region IX North with a 9-7 regional record and a 20-10 mark overall.
National player of the week Jeffrey Solarin had 21 points and 13 rebounds to pace the Trappers in their victory at Gillette. The win avenged a last-second loss Northwest had suffered on its home court earlier in the year at the hands of the Pronghorn.
The Trappers shot better than 46 percent from the floor in the contest and also out rebounded Gillette by a 54-38 margin, but were never able to transform those advantages into an edge on the scoreboard thanks to Gillette’s display of long-range shooting. The Pronghorn were 10-for-32 from 3-point territory in the contest, allowing the team to remain within striking distance of the Trappers throughout the night.
Guilherme Carabagiale added 13 points in his final regular-season game as a Trapper. Pietro de Andrade added 12 points as the Trappers prevailed 75-73 in the contest.
The drama of the final game of the regular season helped wash away the bitter taste of a defeat suffered in their home finale against Western Wyoming. After holding Western Wyoming scoreless for nearly seven minutes to start the game and leading for much of the first 30 minutes, the Trappers surrendered a 15-0 run midway through the second half.
That run transformed a 46- 35 lead for Northwest College into a 50-46 deficit. It was part of a larger 26-3 run that sucked the life from what had been a riled Cabre Gymnasium crowd that turned out to celebrate sophomore night.
A late bevy of 3-point shooting enabled the Trappers to get as close as three on the scoreboard, but the team was never able to overcome the effects of the Mustangs’ second-half scoring run and fell 71-66 at the final buzzer.
Solarin had 22 points just hours after being named the national player of the week in NJCAA Division I basketball. Junior Coleman, who drained a pair of key late 3-point buckets to give the Trappers a final minute opportunity to position themselves for a possible comeback, added 18 points in support.
The Trappers hit 50 percent of their shots in the game, both from the floor and from behind the 3-point arc. The team was unable to answer a Western Wyoming team that shot better than 54 percent after halftime and which managed six additional shots in the half.
With the split of games in the final week of the season, the Trappers received the No. 5 seed from Region IX’s north region. The team will face Lamar (17-13 overall, 9-7 in Region IX South) in an 8 p.m., Sunday, contest played at Casper College. The winner of Sunday’s game will suit up 24 hours later to take on the winner of the Casper College- Western Nebraska game in the quarterfinals of the tournament.
The champion of the Region IX tournament advances to the NJCAA national championships.