EL DORADO, Kan. – Returning to action for the first time in a week, the Cloud County Community College women's basketball team would be unable to keep the pace with host Butler Community College in a 74-44 road defeat inside the Power Plant in El Dorado, Kansas on Wednesday, February 5th.

A third-straight defeat drops Cloud County to 9-15 overall and 4-10 in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference while the Grizzles improved to 17-7 overall and remain on top of the KJCCC East Division with a 10-4 conference mark.

The best offensive quarter of the game would come in the opening period as the T-Birds would match Butler with four points each in the opening 90 seconds of the contest and eventually take their first lead of the game on an Alyssa Castilleja three with 7:19 left in the quarter. A 7-0 Grizzly run would force CCCC into a timeout midway through the quarter but spark a 7-0 rally by Cloud County that would put the T-Birds back on top by a score of 14-12 with 1:32 remaining. Butler would score the final two points of the quarter on a pair of free throws to tie things up at 14-14 heading to the second.

CCCC would be held scoreless for nearly the opening six minutes of the second quarter as Butler take the lead and eventually push things to double-digits at 27-14, with freshman Kelsie Kelly breaking the drought with a three. Things wouldn't get much better for Cloud County to close out the first half as Butler would manage to add on to their lead by scoring 11 of the final 18 points to go up by a score of 38-24 at the half.

In the second half, scoring struggles would continue with only three points being scored by Cloud County in the first four minutes of the third quarter before finally starting to pick up with 10 points to limit the damage by the Grizzlies who would lead 56-37 with one quarter remaining. A game-low seven points would be scored by the T-Birds in the fourth as any chance at a comeback would not be found which allowed Butler to sweep the season series.

Both teams would struggle to shoot the ball offensively as the T-Birds would go just 18-of-62 (29.0 percent) from the field in the game while Butler would hit on 24-of-68 (35.3 percent) from the floor. CCCC would be limited to just 11 free throws while connecting on four as the Grizzlies would go to the line 26 times and go 21-for-26 (80.8 percent). Eight of Cloud County's points off turnovers would come in the first half as the T-Birds would also score 10 second-chance points and 10 points in the paint.

CCCC's leading scorer would be Kelly with 11 points while adding five rebounds while Jacy Dalinghaus would score 10 and add three rebounds. Castilleja would assist on four buckets and score eight for CCCC to finish as the only other T-Bird with more than four points.

What's Next?

Three of Cloud County's next four games will be played at home as the T-Birds will host Coffeyville Community College at 2 p.m. on Saturday, February 8th. The Game will be part of homecoming and hall of fame weekend inside Arley Bryant Gymnasium, and get things started on a day full of festivities.