Northwest College

News Archive (2019-20 and older)

Lady Trappers Look To Carry Momentum Into New Season

NWC Returns Nine Players From 2016-17

The Northwest College women’s basketball team begins its season next week with three consecutive games on the road. 

“Hopefully we can take the positive of how we ended last season and kind of build on that,” said Lady Trappers head coach Janis Beal. “I think that we really came on at the end of the year last year.” 

Last season the Lady Trappers won the Region IX Tournament Play-In Game 70-69 in overtime against Casper College. Though they lost the first game of the Region IX Tournament, it was a 74-70 overtime loss to the No. 1 team in the Region IX South, Western Nebraska Community College.

When the two teams had met early in the season, the Lady Cougars had beat the Lady Trappers 93-59. 

“I think those sophomores for this year have a feel for understanding [what] we learned and we knew what it was going to take and hopefully they can kind of carry that forward,” Beal said. 

Of the 14 athletes on the roster, the Lady Trappers have nine returners from last season.

“I’m excited about our potential just because we have so many returners,” said Beal. 

The returning sophomores are Julynne Silva (Barcarena, Brazil) who made the All-Tournament team last season, Dani McManamen (Torrington) who was on All-Defensive team, Dallas Petties (Aurora, Colorado), Kira Marlow (Shelley Idaho), Charri McArthur (Lovell), Alexi Payne (Molt, Montana), Savanna Savage (Lovell), Mattie Creager (Weston, Idaho) and Domenica Gomes (Sao Paulo, Brazil). 

Of the five incoming freshmen, Beal said the players “really fill some positions and complement those returners really well so I’m really just excited about the mix of players that we have.”

The five freshmen are Kaylee Brown (Ririe, Idaho), Tala Aumua-Tuisavura (Orem, Utah), Shelby Wardell (Lovell), Samantha McCrorey (Hagerman, Idaho) and Tayla Sayer (Paul, Idaho). 

“But it is a new year,” said Beal. “We can’t bank off, ‘Well, we ended well.’”

The Lady Trappers ended last year’s season with a 41 field goal percentage, 30.6 3-point percentage, 69.4 free throw percentage, averaged 39.3 rebounds per game (26.8 on defense and 12.5 on offense), nine steals, 2.7 blocks and 68.8 points per game.

The first game of the new season is against Laramie County Community College at 5 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 2, followed by the Western Wyoming Community College Classic on Nov. 3 and 4.

At the Western Wyoming Community College Classic, the Lady Trappers will first play against Snow College at 1 p.m. on Nov. 3, and against Eastern Wyoming College at 10 a.m. on Nov. 4. 

NWC’s first home game of the season will arrive Nov. 10 and 11 at the First Bank of Wyoming Shootout. On Nov. 10, the Lady Trappers will tip off against Williston State College at 5:30 p.m. and against Eastern Wyoming College at 3 p.m. on Nov. 11.