CONCORDIA, Kan. - Battling through a back-and-forth opening 10 minutes of play that featured four lead changes, the Cloud County Community College men's basketball team would never trail in the second while outscoring Central Community College 48-34 in the final 20 minutes to pull away with an 86-68 home win inside of Arley Bryant Gymnasium on Monday, November 11th.

Cloud County remains perfect with a 3-0 record on the year while the Raiders fell to 3-2 overall after playing their third game in four days with all three games coming away from home.

"I have to give a lot of credit to Central Community College for giving us a battle for almost the entire game despite playing their third-game in four days" said head coach Jordan Altman in a post-game interview. "On the flip side of things, I'm really proud of our guys for following the game plan and pushing the tempo against a team that you know is eventually going to run out of gas." "We shot the three-pointer a little bit better in the second half and got to the free throw line more in the second-half and that helped us break the game open to make the final margin of victory as large as it was." "We did some really good things in the first half, and we did things much better in the second half which led to the outcome that we saw here tonight."

The T-Birds would allow a three on the opening possession of the game by Central before settling in to score the next six points of the game and grab an early 6-3 lead two minutes into the contest. After trading layups with the Raiders, Central would use an 8-0 run to take their largest lead of the game at 13-8 following a Tre Mikkelsen triple with 14:55 remaining in the first half as Cloud County would respond with layups from Iyen Enaruna and Jay Lewis to cut the lead to one at 13-12. Central would manage to hang onto the lead until the 9:49 mark when sophomore DJ Sims would force a turnover and go in for an easy layup to put CCCC up 18-17 as the two teams would then go nearly two minutes without a point.

The Raiders would reclaim the lead once again on a Chase Ruzicka offensive rebound and put back and force a Cloud County timeout just seconds later as a one-and-done opportunity would lead to a transition triple on the other end to put Central up 22-18. Out of the timeout, Cloud County would get a bucket from Michael Ozomah but see the Raiders have a response for each score as the T-Birds would continue to trail by four heading into the final five minutes of the first half.

An 8-0 run in the span of 1:24 by Cloud County would give the T-Birds the lead at 30-27 as Central would be forced to call a timeout with momentum beginning to swing in favor of CCCC right before intermission. Sami Sanad would throw down a dunk to give Cloud County their largest lead of the first half at 32-27 before seeing the Raiders respond with a trey to cut the lead to two as the score would eventually settle at 38-34 in favor of CCCC.

Lewis would get things going in the right direction for the T-Birds to open the second half as the sophomore would drain a three to put Cloud County up 41-34, but Central would score eight of the next nine points to tie things up at 42-42 with 17:47 remaining in the game. Seven straight points by the T-Birds would quickly put CCCC back out in front at 49-42, but the Raiders would once again have a response by getting a layup and free throw to cut the lead to four.

Enaruna and Sanad broke the game open with back-to-back triples on consecutive possessions for Cloud County as the three's would spark a 13-2 run to put the T-Birds up 62-47 with 12:05 remaining. Central would never be able to close the gap any more than 13 the rest of the way as Cloud County would lead by as many as 20 while putting the game away in the paint and at the charity stripe.

For the game, Cloud County would shoot 47.3 percent (35-for-74) from the field despite going just six-of-22 (27.3 percent) from beyond the arc while holding the Raiders to a 35.7 percent (25-for-70) outing and 10-for-34 (29.4 percent) performance from long distance. The T-Birds would utilize their size advantage to outscore Central 46-28 in the paint while also holding a 19-4 advantage in fast-break points.

Scoring a game-high 23 points, Lewis would also contribute four assists and three rebounds in the game while Enaruna would just miss out on a double-double after scoring 16 points and adding nine rebounds. Both Sims (13) and Sanad (12) would reach double figures off the bench while Ozomah grabbed eight rebounds and scored six points in 10 minutes of action.

What's Next?

Cloud County has one day to prepare for Sunrise Christian Academy, a post-high school prep team out of Wichita, Kansas. Tip-off is set for 6 p.m. as Cloud County is in the midst of a four-game home stand after opening the season with a road game.