Feb. 2, 2007

Final Stats

It was a frustrating night for the No. 5 Northeastern Junior College basketball team. Nothing went as planned for Coach Eddie Trenkle's team...except the outcome.

NJC survived two technical fouls, a four-point night by leading scorer Shane Edwards and no points from hot-shooting Mike Dominguez.

"Because I lost control which caused my players to play to my emotions," Trenkle said. "As a young coach, I have to understand that my players play to my emotions. I want to apologize to the people of Sterling, our fans and our players for losing control."

When it was all said and done, it was too much Omar Leary and not enough Trinidad.

The Plainsmen jumped on the back of the sophomore point-guard from Portland, Oreg.; and he led NJC to an 80-69 victory in Jackson-Edwards arena. Leary scored a season-high 31 points, dished out six assists and nabbed four steals.

"This was just one of those games that we had to grind out," Leary said. "You could call it an ugly win, but its still a "W" in the win/loss column. I felt like I should take it upon myself to take a serious approach and make sure we get this win. We're at a point where we want to be, so we can't have these let-downs right now."

LaTravis Turner and Rashad Austin each finished in double figures in scoring with 12 and 11 points, respectively. Both players pulled down six rebounds for the Plainsmen.

Dominguez was held scoreless for the first time this season, but the freshman grabbed a game-high eight boards.

NJC plays Casper at 7:30 p.m., Saturday in Jackson-Edwards Arena.