In yet another contest on the road, Cochise College women’s basketball team beat Chandler-Gilbert CC 71-59 on Wednesday night.

Arianna Anderson and JuWanna Milton were the top scorers for Cochise, with 12 points each. Sophia Elenga brought down 11 rebounds, while adding 8 points.

Milton had 7 rebounds, and Anderson wasn’t far behind with 6. Rauline Martinez contributed a key 10 points for Cochise, which also got 8 points and 6 rebounds from Endia Peterson. The defensive effort was led by guard Taylor Harris, who picked off 5 steals on the night.
Cochise didn’t shoot particularly well, however, it won the rebounding battle over Chandler-Gilbert 48-34. Offensive rebounding was the key, as Cochise pulled down 19 boards on its side of the court. The victory took Cochise to a 17-5 overall mark, with a 11-3 conference clip.
Saturday night, in a riveting thriller, Cochise College women’s basketball team beat Eastern Arizona 54-52.

Coulter Bowlen and Ciara Fields both had 14 points to lead Cochise, with Fields going 3/4 on 3-point shooting. Sophia Elenga had 11 rebounds. Elenga, Taylor Harris and Guadalupe Chao all chipped in 4 points.

Cochise out-rebounded Eastern Arizona 41-35, plus used a stingy defensive game plan to bottle up Eastern Arizona’s offensive attack. However, it was the end of the game that proved to be the ultimate climax.

With 2:30 left in crunch-time and the score tied at 48, Fields hit two free-throws to give Cochise the lead by two. A few possessions later, Eastern Arizona scored on a break-away layup to tie the game with 1:54 left. Next, Bowlen made a layup, and on the following possession, Eastern Arizona missed a 3-pointer, which resulted in Elenga’s 11th rebound. However, Elenga couldn’t hold on for long, as a scramble for the ball ensued, which led to Arianna Anderson getting fouled and making both of her free-throws with 16 seconds left to give Cochise the lead at 54-50.

After a Cochise foul, Eastern made 2 free-throws to pull within two points with seven seconds left. After Taylor Harris missed both of her free-throws, Cochise couldn’t hang on to the rebound and the ball fell out of bounds with 3.7 seconds left.  Due to the new advancement rule, Eastern Arizona got to in-bound the ball in front of their own bench, yet missed the go ahead three-point attempt as time expired.

Head coach Laura Hughes stated, “This was a good win against the No. 1 team in the conference. We held a team that averages 80, to 52 points. It was an all-around great team effort.”

Cochise is now 18-5 on the season (12-3 in conference), and will next host Arizona Western College on Wednesday, February 3rd.