COFFEYVILLE, Kansas — The Cloud County Community College women's basketball team opened up the road portion of its schedule on Saturday, earning a 71-54 victory over Coffeyville Community College.

With the win, the T-Birds improved to 7-1 overall and 4-1 in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference (KJCCC).

"It was really a good road win for us," said Cloud County head coach, Brett Erkenbrack. "I thought we stuck together through a little adversity. We got down and dealt with some foul trouble early in the game. It went about how most road wins are in the conference where we just grinded it out."

The two teams combined for five ties and four lead changes in the first half. Cloud County owned a 33-27 lead over the Red Ravens (4-5 overall, 3-4 KJCCC) at the break before breaking the game open with a 22-12 advantage in the third quarter.

"We had some nice interior passing in the half court that led to some easy baskets for us and I think we really out-hustled (Coffeyville) in the third quarter," Erkenbrack said. "We were able to get the pace of the game going right for us."

The T-Birds shot 45 percent (13-of-29) from the floor in the second half and 43 percent (26-of-61) from the game.

Defensively, the T-Birds put the clamps on the Red Ravens over the final 20 minutes as they held Coffeyville to 24 percent (7-of-27) shooting.

"We knew we were really going to have to guard them off the dribble. I thought, especially in the third quarter, we did well with that," Erkenbrack said. "Coffeyville can be hard to guard and they have good athletes at every position."

Sophomore guard Kelsi Mueller led the way for the T-Birds on Saturday with a game-high 20 points, 18 of which came from behind the 3-point line as she was 6-of-14 from long distance.

Freshman forward Scout Frame joined Mueller in double-figures with 14 points. The freshmen backcourt duo of Camille Awa Baud and Tiana Johnson added nine points and seven points, respectively. Sophomore forward Kennedy Gay also tallied seven points.

Cloud County will be back on its home floor at 6 p.m. Wednesday when the T-Birds welcome in Neosho County Community College.