NJC men back at it after successful scrimmage against Western Wyoming
By Hart Pisani | hpisani@journal-advocate.com |
At long, long, LONG last, Northeastern Junior College sports are finally close at hand. With fall sports being pushed back to the spring semester due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, there will be even more sports than usual in the coming months. While the regular season is still a week away, the NJC men's basketball team was able to take the court on Thursday for the first time since March.
Well, sort of.
NJC held an official scrimmage against Western Wyoming in Sterling on Thursday afternoon. There were no formal officials,. There were three 20 minute periods were played with the score resetting after one and the clock going from 7 minutes to 2 minutes in the third (the scoreboard operators had to leave early). There were no fans allowed. Still, for the first time in 10 months, the Plainsmen were back on the court once again playing basketball.
There were no real results to report. The first period ended with a 43-43 tie before the score reset. The next period finished with Western Wyoming holding a 27-26 lead with the score remaining at that point heading into the third. The last period was shortened by 5 minutes late and the scrimmage resulted in a 52-52 tie. None of it was official, but once again, the biggest take away is that NJC basketball was back at long last.
There were some promising overall numbers, too. Cyler Kane Johnson led the Plainsmen with 19 points while Dalton Knecht added 15. Rashon Barron contributed 12 while Junub Chuol and Quincey Jewett chipped in 8 a piece. Sterling High School alum's Carter Keil and Axel Henry each chipped in a 3-point shot while Jakob Chrisman (brother of NJC volleyball coach Kenzie Chrisman) contributed on the rebounding front. In other words, the Plainsmen looked pretty good despite missing two players due to COVID-19 protocols. Yet head coach Eddie Trenkle believes there's still room for improvement.
"You can tell we're young in some sports where we weren't young last year," he said. "We've got to get a little bit tougher when it comes to just doing what we want to do. I thought Western Wyoming brought the fight to us and did a good job with that. We just have to get a little bit better at it.
"We wanted to see where we were. We know where we are now and we've got two tough road games next week to go and compete in."
NJC will officially kick off the season on Friday the 22nd in Twin Falls, Idaho against Utah State Eastern before playing College of Southern Idaho on Saturday the 23rd. The first home game will be played on Tuesday, January 26th against Laramie County Community College at 7:30 pm. No fans will be allowed to attend that game outside of the families of student athletes due to Logan County COVID-19 restrictions.