Arkansas City, Kan. – The Pratt Community College (PCC) women's basketball team traveled to Cowley College (CC) to take on the Tigers in the first round of the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) Region VI tournament. The Beavers had already faced the Tigers last week on Wednesday, February 23rd for sophomore night. After a slow start, Pratt fought their back into the game but lost 61-49.
In last night's contest, the Beavers jumped out to an early lead 7-3 at the 5:29 mark in the first quarter. Cowley would come back and tie it in the first quarter, but the Beavers would finish the quarter with a one-point lead 11-10. The game remained closed in the second half and was tied with 15 seconds left before halftime. With four seconds left in the quarter, Milena Fromming made a three-point basket to give the Tigers a 26-23 lead at halftime. Cowley slowly pulled ahead in the third quarter and lead 39-34 after the third quarter. The Beavers after being done as much as fourteen points pulled it within nine with 2:00 minutes left in the game. In the final two minutes the Tigers pushed their lead to eleven, but Pratt managed to pull it back within nine to end the game 63-54.
"We tied our season low of turnovers which was awesome and at halftime we were right there with them, but they took the lead into the locker room after they hit a three at the buzzer," said Head Coach Eric Rodewald. "We stayed close the whole game, but down the stretch we missed a few plays. They got hot and made some threes against us, but we battled the whole way like we did all year."
Sophomore guard/forward Chariah Daniels ended the season with a double-double putting up 15 points and 11 rebounds. Sophomores Karolina Juresiute had 17 points in the game and Cassie Onwugbufor had 13 points and 6 assists.
"We never knew how many were going to be there every day due to COVID and how many people were going to be at practice," said Coach Rodewald. "Especially the four that have been here for two years they have battled a lot of adversity. When you lose 16 games in a row and you show up every day you really don't show up every day, but this group did."
Pratt finished their season 3-26 overall and 2-22 in the conference. The highlight of the season was picking up two conference wins at home against Northwest Technical College (NWTC) 70-48 and then against the number one seed in the conference Independence Community College (ICC) 68-65.
"You lose to a JV team early on and everyone is asking what is going on, but to go from that game to beat Independence who is the top seed in the conference is really a tale of two cities," said Coach Rodewald. "Ever since the Indy game and maybe a little bit before then we have been in every ballgame. The record doesn't show it, but just our ability to preserve and compete everyday was pretty awesome."
Of the eight women on the roster, seven will graduate and move on from PCC. The eighth will return to playing volleyball in the fall. Expect to see lots of new faces on the roster come next fall.
"Culture matters and so we are looking to bring kids that will do things the right way and have a good work ethic," said Coach Rodewald. "We also need some 'want to' kids who just want the opportunity to compete."