DOUGLAS — Sophomore Justina Prairie Chief picked up her own rebound and, falling backward, put it into the hoop with a second remaining Friday to give the Cochise women’s basketball team a 71-70 win over Pima in the regular-season finale.
“It was going so fast, I didn’t think I’d get it off in time, but I did — luckily,” Prairie Chief told the Sierra Vista Herald. She finished with 11 points, all in the last 21 minutes. “The ball’s right there, I just thought, ‘grab it, shoot it again.’ It felt good, and I wanted it to go in, so it went in.”
The Apaches finished with a 25-5 record, the most wins in school history for the program, but the victory did not come easy. Cochise was behind by as many as 17 in the first half and went into the break behind 37-23.
“We were lazy, is the best way to put it — we weren’t going after loose balls,” head coach Laura Hughes told the Herald. “I just challenged them at halftime and said, ‘work hard, this is your season, how do you want it to finish?’… That’s what’s good about having a veteran team with lots of sophomores. They responded and got it done.”
A free throw by Yvonte Neal gave Cochise the lead with three minutes to play. Neal would finish with a game-high 19 points before she was ejected along with Pima’s Raja Moreno for flagrant fouls when tempers flared late in the game. Neal faces an automatic one-game suspension, meaning the Apaches will be missing their star guard on Wednesday when they host Arizona Western in the NJCAA Region I semifinals.
“Yvonte is definitely a big part of our team,” Prairie Chief said. “The rest of us have to step up and do what we can to fill her shoes.”
Wednesday’s game between the second-seeded Apaches and the third-seeded Matadors begins at 7:30 p.m. on the Douglas Campus. Cochise College students with an ID get into the game free. Admission is $5 for adults and $3 for kids.
Cochise men
DOUGLAS — The Cochise men’s basketball team routed Pima 99-59 Friday night. Tevin Caldwell led Cochise with 15 points and Tim Jacobs, Demeco Blue and Ajak Magot all finished with 12 points, and Jerry Duckworth scored 10.
Cochise closed the regular season at 25-5 and 18-4 in Arizona Community College Athletic Conference standings. The Apaches will take the fourth seed in the NJCAA Region I Championship Tournament and head to Central Arizona on Thursday for the semifinal game.
Friday night’s win against Pima was the 399th in head coach Jerry Carrillo’s 18-year tenure at Cochise College.