The North Central Missouri College Lady Pirates wrapped up their season last week with a 1-2 performance at the D-2 national tournament in Joplin, rolling to a first-round victory over Southwestern Michigan before bowing out of the tournament at Missouri Southern University with losses to #1 ranked Johnson County (KS) and Union College (NJ).
Just like the Pirate men, the Lady Pirates were the beneficiary of the NJCAA decision to add four at-large teams into the national tournament, with North Central awarded with a trip to Joplin despite a loss to Jefferson College in the Region 16 championship game on March 2nd in St. Louis. The Lady Pirates would go on to finish their season at 25-8.
In Monday morning’s first-round test, the Lady Pirates downed Southwestern Michigan 79-66, with Mary Copeland scoring 13, Gladys Brown 11, and Nateonia Russell and A’Myah Bankston 10 points each. The key to the victory was on the boards, where North Central outrebounded their Michigan counterparts 50-36. The Lady Pirates controlled the final quarter, outscoring SWM 21-11 over the final ten minutes.
Against top-seeded Johnson County, points were difficult to come by for both squads in the Lady Pirates third meeting with the Cavaliers. Russell scored 10 on 4-8 shooting but NCMC as a team shot just 26.5% in the game. The long range game netted just 3-21 for NCMC, normally a strong suit. NCMC got outrebounded in this contest 45-31 and Johnson County’s Taliyah Scott led all scorers with 21 points, with the Cavaliers, the eventual national runner-up, emerging with a 55-43, spoiling North Central’s upset bid with a 14-4 edge in the final quarter.
In NCMC’s elimination game, Union’s Khila Morris proved too much for the Lady Pirates to handle. She scored 36 points on 14-19 shooting plus 7-9 from the charity stripe. NCMC’s top scorer was Chillicothe native Jessica Reeter with 17 points. Gladys Brown added 16 points from the bench. The game was close through 3 quarters with NCMC down by a single point before being outscored 27-15 in the final stanza.
On the recruiting trail heading into the offseason, the Lady Pirates will be concentrating on adding size and rebounding ability in the frontcourt, with the looming graduations of Tori Meinecke and Mary Copeland leaving a question mark for a program that will be very deep and very strong at the guard positions for 2024-2025.
