Two Lady Indians sign with D1 basketball schools
Two McCook Community College women’s basketball players have signed on to continue their basketball careers at NCAA D1 programs.
MCC Coach Brandon Pritchett has announced that Madara Liepniece has signed with Bryant University and Irene Fernandez Pavesio signed on with Morehead State University.
Liepniece, 5-7 point guard from Riga, Latvia will play for Coach Lynne-Ann Kokoski in Smithfield, Rhode Island. The Bulldogs went 17-15 last season in the America East Conference. The season ended in the Women’s NIT Tournament with an opening round 59-58 loss to Army.
Liepniece, started all 31 games for the Lady Indians, leading the team in scoring 12.4 points per game, 3.1 assists and 1.7 steals per game. She was second on the team with 5.1 rebounds per game. Liepniece was a 34.0 percent shooter from the field, 30.8 from the 3-point line and 70.9 percent from the free-throw line. During the season, she scored in double-figures 20 times, with a high of 25 coming against Laramie County Community College on Nov. 8.
She was named to the Region IX all-south team as well as being selected to the all-tournament team, received the Region IX South Player of the Week three times during the season. She was also tabbed for the All-Nebraska Community College Athletic Conference team and was an honorable mention pick for the Omaha World-Herald Midlands Junior college team
For her career, Liepniece averaged 9.0 points a game and scored 564 points with 217 rebounds, 143 assists and 84 steals.
Fernandez Pavesio, 6-0 forward from Asturias, Spain, transferred to MCC after one year at Miami-Dade Community College.
This season, she started 30 games for the Lady Indians, averaging 7.3 points, 5.0 rebounds and 2.0 assists per game. She shot 51.7 percent from the field and 47.1 percent from the 3-point line. She scored a season-high 22 points in a Dec. 7 game at Eastern Wyoming. She grabbed 12 rebounds in a Dec. 14 game against Western Wyoming and tied that season-high mark in MCC’s final home game Feb. 28 against Trinidad State.
In MCC’s season-ending 69-68 Region IX tournament loss to Gillette College, Fernandez Pavesio made six of nine shots from the field, went four-for-four from the free-throw line, scoring 17 points and grabbing 10 rebounds.
Her new team, Morehead State is in Morehead Ky. The Eagles play in the Ohio Valley Conference where they finished at 10-20 last season which prompted a coaching change as Ashton Feldhaus took over head coaching duties in mid-March.