Clackamas Community College’s women’s basketball team’s season came to an end on Saturday, March 9, after a 71-46 loss to Wenatchee Valley College in the first round of NWAC playoffs.

The Cougars came into the tournament on a bit of a hot streak winning seven of their last eight league games led by sophomore guard CJ Buckley who averaged 23.1 points per game in league play.

The Cougars shot 41.1 percent from the field during the regular season and 30 percent from the three-point line and Head Coach Jim Martineau felt like his team needed to have another strong shooting performance to upset Wenatchee Valley.

“We have to be able to score,” Martineau said. “They’re probably the best defensive team in the NWAC, offensively they’re decent, but they really defend well, so we have to make sure we can score 75, 77 points like we have all year long.”

Unfortunately for Clackamas, the shooting just wasn’t on and they finished the night shooting 27 percent from the field on 17-63 shooting and went 0-15 from beyond the arc.

Clackamas opened the scoring with a layup from Buckley and with 5:26 left in the first quarter was tied at 8-8, but the Cougars went scoreless for the rest of the quarter and Wenatchee Valley was able to jump out to a 17-8 lead. Clackamas’ offense continued to stall for the opening of the second quarter as Wenatchee widened the scoring gap 22-8. Peyton Elliott scored a layup with 7:03 remaining in the second quarter to end Clackamas’ offensive skid at 10-22 but Wenatchee Valley answered and despite the two teams trading buckets, took an 11-point lead into halftime, 30-19.

The Knights outscored the Cougars 24-10 in the third to widen their lead to 54-29. Clackamas and Wenatchee Valley tied in fourth quarter scoring with 17 a piece, but with Knights having a 25-point lead going into the final quarter of the game it was too late for Clackamas who fell 71-46.

The Cougars finish the season with an overall record of 15-15 and will graduate sophomore guards Miranda Jensen, Elliot, Buckley and sophomore post Audrey Barden. Buckley finished the season with 543 points and 748 in her career.