MCC Basketball Falls in Conference Action

McHenry County College’s basketball teams came into Thursday’s Illinois Skyway Collegiate Conference matchup with Prairie State College each looking for their sixth win of the season.

The wait for that elusive victory will continue as the women’s team fell 64-55 and the men lost 84-55. In the women’s game to open the night, the Scots (5-21, 2-8) jumped out quickly with a 12-3 run to begin the game and would take a 17-7 lead later in the half. At that point, Prairie State began to take over the game as the Pioneers went on a 24-5 run to take a 31-22 lead and would lead 35-23 at halftime.

MCC tried to battle back in the second half, cutting the lead to six points on a number of occasions before Prairie State would have a response each time.

MCC made one final run to pull within 56-52 but couldn’t tie the game up. Alyssa Haayer led MCC with 19 points while Brianna Pirro added 12 and Amanda Knutson had 11.

Coach Pam Mason said that while her team couldn’t keep up their opening stretch.

“I think we got caught up in the pace of the game and Prairie State is a fast, transition team,” Mason said. “We got caught up in their pace instead of what was working for us. If we are patient all the time, we get good shots but we got caught up and made too many turnovers in that first half and dug that hole for us.”

Mason added however that she was pleased with having three players in double figures.

“It was nice because I’ve been trying to get Amanda (Knutson) to shoot all season, she has a really nice shot and is a good three-point shooter but she won’t shoot so I was excited to see that,” Mason said. “We’ve been trying to get Brianna Pirro down in the post and she is able to score and can get double digits down there. We have been encouraging her to try to score more down there.”

In the nightcap, MCC’s men’s team started fast just like the women, getting out to a quick 8-2 lead. Prairie State would go on a quick 7-2 run however to pull back within 10-9 but MCC would hold tough and not allow Prairie State to get out to a big lead as the two teams went back and forth with Prairie State leading 35-31 at halftime.

The second half was a completely different story for MCC (5-22, 1-9) as Prairie State came out of the gate on fire, scoring seven of the first nine points of the half and began to pull away and would complete a 21-8 lead to put the game out of reach.

Will Bush scored 15 of his game-high 17 points in the first half while Chris Madson added 13 for the Scots.

Coach Jason Robinson said it is a half he would like to never see again.

“The second half was hands-down the most selfish we have played all season,” Robinson said. “Offensively, we were trying to do everything one-on-one and defensively, not defending anybody, It didn’t matter what defense I was running, they were beating us in transition. They were beating our zone, they were beating our man-to-man. It was pretty disappointing because these kids have worked pretty hard and we don’t have any talent to come back on anybody playing one-on-one.”

Robinson added that he didn’t know what happened after halftime.

“I know we have a lot of inexperience on the floor which is why I had the freshmen out there to end the game,” Robinson said. “It was so every possession out there, they could learn the game more. We’re still fighting the fact all over again that they are all still freshmen and not seniors and their athleticism won’t take them where they want to go and it’s unfortunate. We talked about that after the game and it’s too late in the season for that. They should have learned that a long time ago.”

MCC will complete their home schedule Saturday afternoon with games against the College of Lake County with the women’s game starting at 1 p.m. and the men beginning at 3 p.m.