2001

WEEK OF 3)JCf)DJ Lady Warriors face tall order in stopping CAC By Marty Stampe r The Meridian Star SALINA, Kan . - To ones."

Mississi ppi and we're p r ou d to be t hat . we·re going to come in here and JUSt play as hard as we can. "We've ha d a lot of folk, tell us how hard we played (agains t Cloud County ) a n d how they e nj oyed watching the t eam play. E ve n people from Clou d County came up to us and said w e ' ve got a r eally good ballclub. That make, us feel good. "Somebody had t o lo~ c and now we're going t o play this oth er one and ,. what happens." ECCC and Central Ari– zona met in t he 1994 nationa l tournament v; ith the Vaqueras taking a i - 71 opening-round win . The '94 Lady Warriors went on to finish seventh that year beating Casper (Wyo. ) s- - 58 , Truett-McConoell (Ga. ), and Independe nce (Kan.) 71-62. "I thought the re a son we didn't do good a gain<> t them then was we had some people that were ner– vous beca u se i t wa,. the national tournament " Pace s a i d . "I fe<.l hke maybe t h at was the ca~e with our si t ua t ion v; tth Cloud County the ot her night. "I feel like 1f we can ' toP some things that they are doing, which is going to be hard to do, then we\ ·e ~o· a good shot." Marty Stamper is a sports \~ for The Merid1an Star E-tnal him mstamper@themeridlan.star.com.

The Vaqueras' victims dur ing the regular season incl ud e Sou th Mountain 100-33 and 100-32). Glen– dale (90-57 l, ~iesa (80-44), Pima (83-28 and 69-29), Kilgore, Texas, (88-50) , Cochise (89-34), Scottsdale (81-37), Northland Pioneer 178-40), and Phoenix (81- 54). Obviously, there ' s no rest for the weary. "I think our quarter of the bracket is the toughest quarter in the whole tour– nament," Pace said. "In all of t h e others , you've got one team that' s pretty dang good, but then you've g ot several that' s very good. In ours, they're all tough." Only four of the 11 Vaqueras are from Ari– zona,as that state doesn't bind itself to the same dis– trict limitations MACJC members do. Two are from Texas, two from Washing– ton, one from Oregon, and two are from other coun– tries. On the other h a nd, ECCC has just two active players from outside the :Magnolia State. "They can spread out all over the United States if they want to," Pace s aid. "I don ' t krlow why we wouldn't call this Western United States instead of Central Arizona. I think that would be a more appropriate name for their school. "But we're East Cen t r al

s tay a live in the i\JCAA Women's National B~ et– ball Champion ,htp , t h e Lady Warrior::; of Ea.:.t Central Communit~ Col– lege will ha ve to .-----:=--~

beat the team tha t'5 been to t he national tou r n ame n t the most time~ and has the most wins in 1t. The Central Ari– zona College Vaqueras are mak– ing their 21st a ppearance in the nati onal tourna - menl

Pace

They won in 1989 and 1998, finis h ed second in 1999, and placed third in 1997. They were sixth last year. ECCC and Central Ari– zona tangle in today's con– solation bracket at 10 a.m. The game may be heard on 98.3 FM, WSSI-Carthage. The Vaqueras, who were the No. 2 seed entering this year's tournament, were giving up just 49 points per game before T uesday's stunning 58-55 loss to Cincinnati (Ohio) State in which they blew a 13-point lead over the final 12 minutes. Centr al Arizona shot j ust 27.8 per cen t (22-of-79) from the floor in the loss and was a dismal 1-of-16 (6.25 percent) from 3-point range. "Don't ask me who that

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