Indians rally from 20 down for victory

McCOOK, Neb. — With the home team flat and down by 20 points early in the second half, McCook Community College Coach Brandon Lenhart went to his bench.

A strategy from the past then helped his team down Northeastern Junior College Saturday in the Peter and Dolores Graff Events Center 86-79.

“We were just stale in the first half, stale on offense, stale on defense and at halftime I told the guys that if that continued, we’d try to come at NJC in waves,” Lenhart said.

After moving ahead 46-30 at the half, NJC stretched the lead to 20 at the 18:03 mark and Lenhart called his timeout shortly after.

“I told the guys over break that some time when we needed need to go back to a strategy we’d used in year’s past – and that was to bring in waves of fresh players,” Lenhart said.

The coach said he told his players he believed they wear NJC down and that if they cut the gap to 10 points, he’d call a time-out at the 10-minute mark to regroup and come back with more waves.

That happened.

Then the Indians began to wear down the Plainsmen in waves. With 4:17 to play a D’Von Moore 3-pointer made it a 73-68 game. A

Shevelle Bailey basket at the 3:32 mark pulled the Indians to within three points at 75-72. Moore came back with a 3-pointer with 2:09 left to tie the game at 77.

On the ensuing possession, Isaiah Richardson forced NJC into an offensive foul and MCC eventually took the lead with Moore’s basket at the 56.7 mark

A pair of Moore free-throws with 38.9 left gave MCC a three-point lead and the Indians were able to finish off the game on the foul line.

“D’Von Moore hit some huge threes for us,” Lenhart said.

The sophomore from Statesboro, Ga. scored a game-high 34 points, connecting on five-of-eight attempts from the 3-point line, 10 of 13 shots overall and nine of 11 free-throws.