NORTH PLATTE – It was a wild Tuesday night for the Region IX South teams as all three games went to overtime including the Western Nebraska Community College men earning a thrilling 81-80 win over North Platte Community College in North Platte.

                The win moves the Cougars to 13-8 on the season and to 3-1 in the South Sub-region.

                The other two South Sub-region contests were also overtime thrillers and made the race to host the Region IX tourney chaotic as McCook Community College downed Northeastern Junior College 80-77 in overtime and Otero College needed double overtime to beat Lamar 91-86.

                That means that WNCC, McCook, and Trinidad State are all tied at 3-1 in conference play with NJC a half-game behind at 2-1. WNCC hosts McCook Friday night at Cougar Palace in a women's and men's doubleheader.

                The game itself was one of two halves for the Cougars. North Platte shot the lights out in the first half in hitting 51 percent while WNCC was just 30 percent.

                The first half saw WNCC score the first bucket of the game and trailed 8-6 before North Platte went up by 13, 27-14. WNCC cut the lead to six, 35-29 on a Kayden Nation 3-ponter, but couldn't get any closer as North Platte led 44-33 at halftime.

                The second half shooting was reversed with WNCC shooting 46 percent to just 30 percent for North Platte. WNCC opened with a 6-0 run to make it 44-40. North Platte went back up by eight at 50-42. That was when the Cougars went on a 17-2 run that saw 3-pointers by Willie Wilson and Elijah Burney for a 59-52 lead.

                North Platte responded with a 7-0 run of their own to knot the game at 59. The two teams swapped buckets. North Platte led late at 69-65. The Cougars scored the next two buckets including the tying field goal from Wilson to force overtime at 69-69.

                North Platte took a 75-71 lead in the overtime period and led 77-74. JJ Harris hit a bucket and then North Platted missed two free throws with 1:35 to play. Harris came down and buried a triple to put the Cougars up 79-77. With 15 seconds to play, North Platte called a timeout and then had a costly turnover with 6-3 seconds. Kayden Nation was then fouled with 4.1 seconds and hit both charity tosses for a four-point lead. North Platte hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer but it wasn't enough.

                WNCC put four players in double figures, led by Wilson with 19 followed by Harris with 15. Burney and Nation each had 12 points.

WNCC                 33 36 12 – 81
North Platte      44 25 11 – 80
WNCC
JJ Harris 15, Anthony Simo 6, Nazir Griffith 9, Willie Wilson 19, Stephen Ovia 6, Elijah Burney 12, Daniel Bula 2, Kayden Nation 12.
NORTH PLATTE
D. Evans 26, E. Kouame-Palm 2, P. Baumann 21, B. Baez 11, J. Hallberg 3, E. Oladeru 8, M. Cooper 9.

Region IX Standings
South Sub-region
Team                                    Conf.         Overall
Trinidad                               3-1             14-6
WNCC                                 3-1             13-8
McCook                              3-1             8-11
NJC                                       2-1             8-9
Otero                                    2-3             9-13
North Platte                      1-3             8-9
Lamar                                  0-4             7-14

North Sub-region
Gillette                                3-0             18-3
W. Wyoming                      2-0             13-6
C. Wyoming                      1-1             10-10
E. Wyoming                       1-1             5-13
Casper                                 1-2             12-9
Laramie County              0-2             11-9
Northwest                         0-2             8-4