Pratt, Kan. – The Pratt Community College (PCC) women's basketball team celebrated sophomore night last night, February 23rd in front of a packed Beaver Dome. The Cowley College (CC) Tigers were in town for the final regular season game. Back on January 15th, the Beavers visited Cowley for the first game of the series and lost 68-43.
The Beavers entered the game needing to either win, or for Northwest Tech to lose due to the tie breaking system in order to make the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) Region VI tournament. Cowley's position in the postseason was set entering last night's matchup.
The game got off to a rocky start with the Beavers down 18-1 in the first quarter. The slow start didn't prevent the Beavers from coming right back into the game by outscoring the Tigers 19-7 in the second quarter. The second half was back and forth with both team playing competitive, but the Beavers couldn't quite overcome their first quarter deficit and lost 61-49.
"I thought after a slow start that we played pretty solid to cut it back to six at half," said Head Coach Eric Rodewald. "Chariah played awesome and KJ provided some good minutes off the bench. It was a good finish to the regular season just wished we could have got the win."
Sophomore guard Chariah Daniels had a double-double in her final appearance in the Beaver Dome with 11 points and 13 rebounds. Sophomores Christy Wiebe and Karolina Juresiute both had over 10 points in the game. The Beavers did end the game outrebounding the Tigers 39 to 30.
After the game, it was announced that the Beavers were the twelve seed in the tournament due to having a higher seeded win than Northwest Tech. Pratt will travel to Arkansas City, KS for the second time this year and face the Cowley Tigers for the third time in two months. The game will tip off at 5:30 pm.
"It should be a quick opportunity for us not to have to mentally prepare as we should know what they are doing," said Coach Rodewald. "They know what we are doing and it will be a matter of who executes better."
If Pratt would get the win on Saturday they would travel to Great Bend, KS to take on the Cougars of Barton Community College on Tuesday, March 1st. The Beavers have lost twice to Barton, but have played the Cougars competitively. On December 11th they faced the Cougars in the Beaver Dome for the first time and lost 53-35. Pratt traveled to Barton for the rematch on February 9th and lost 77-53.
"We are excited to play an extra game as not every team in our league gets to," said Coach Rodewald. "Just like when we beat Indy no one thought we could and as the 12th seed no one thinks we will go over and beat Cowley. It will be nice to have a healthy squad on Saturday which hasn't happened in both instances we faced them."
