McConnell’s career-high 28 lead Pirates

KC McConnell scored a career-high 28 points to lead visiting Whitworth to a 73-57 win over Southwestern University in a nonconference women’s basketball game on Saturday night in Georgetown, Texas.

McConnell overcame first-half foul trouble to help the 18th-ranked Pirates improve to 6-0 this season.  She scored 11 of Whitworth’s first 20 points before she left the game with foul trouble in the opening half and the Pirates then saw a 10-point little disappear.

But McConnell played all 20 minutes of the second half, scoring 17 points after halftime, to help Whitworth pull away from Southwestern (1-5), who are also known as the Pirates.

McConnell was 10 of 16 from the field, including 6 of 10 from 3-point range, to help surpass the previous career high of 23 points she set Friday night in a win at Texas Lutheran. Her previous career best before coming to Texas this weekend was 22 points, which she had done on more than one occasion.

For the sixth time this season Whitworth forced more than 20 opponent turnovers.  Tonight it was 24 and the Bucs finished with a 35-12 advantage in points off of turnovers.

Men

Community Colleges of Spokane and North Idaho College won their semifinal games at the Bigfoot Classic at Spokane Community College, and will meet today in the championship.

Dean Richey made 10 of 14 shots, including 12 of 14 free throws, and finished with 32 points as the Sasquatch (6-1) pulled away in the second half and beat Yakima Valley (2-4) 99-72.

For NIC, Jordan King had 23 points and nine rebounds and the Cardinals (8-1) clipped Big Bend (3-3) 74-66.

Today’s title game is at 4 p.m.