GARDEN CITY, Kan. – A potential go-ahead layup with just over 20 seconds remaining would be left short as the Cloud County Community College men's basketball team would see Garden City Community College hit a game-winning shot with 3.2 seconds remaining to hand the T-Birds a heartbreaking 63-61 road defeat inside Conestoga Arena in Garden City, Kansas on Saturday, January 8th.
 
A fifth loss on the season by single-digits moves Cloud County to 7-9 overall and 3-7 in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference while Garden City improves to 10-5 overall and 4-5 in the KJCCC with four of their five losses also coming by single-digits.  
 
A slow start for CCCC would see Cloud County go the opening 3:02 of the game before finally getting on the scoreboard which would allow Garden City to jump out to an early 4-0 lead as neither team would get off to a strong start. After battling back to tie things up at 4-4, the T-Birds would see the
Broncbusters score the next five points and six of the next nine to hold a 10-7 lead after seven minutes of action.
 
The Garden City lead would grow to a game-high seven at 14-7 for the Broncbusters as the Cloud County would be forced to endure another scoring drought with Zion Obanla coming off the bench to stop the momentum for GCCC. A Corey Sawyer Jr. triple with 10:22 left in the first half would allow CCCC to get back within two points at 14-12 as the T-Birds would get back within one possession on three separate occasions despite seeing Garden City have a response each time. Joe Kearney would pull Cloud County back even at 18-18 with just under six minutes left in the first half as the trey would spark an 8-3 run by the T-Birds to take a 25-21 lead with 3:36 left before halftime. CCCC would then see the Broncbusters pull back within two before scoring 10 of the final 13 points of the opening half to take their largest lead of the contest at 35-26 on a Savian Edwards three to end the first period.
 
Five quick points for GCCC would allow Garden City to get back within four in the opening minute of the second half, but the T-Birds would have a response with Sawyer Jr. hitting his second three of the game. Cloud County would see their lead stay between one and five points over the next six-plus minutes of action before conceding the lead on a Heru Blgien jumper with 12:52 remaining in the game to make it a 43-42 Broncbuster lead.
 
Points would be at a premium over the next stretch of the contest as Nate Duckworth would allow CCCC to reclaim the lead on a layup that would wind up being the only field goal over the next five minutes of action. The free-throw line would become the scoring option for both squads in that period as the T-Birds would hit three of their four attempts at the charity stripe while seeing Garden City go two-of-six in that time frame to allow Cloud County to hold onto a two-point lead.
 
 
Things would remain tight heading into the final seven minutes of action as Duckworth would put the T-Birds up four at 50-46 before seeing GCCC score the next five points in the span of 1:35 to go back up by a score of 51-50. Kearney would have a response to put CCCC back on top 52-51 before seeing Duckworth hit a triple to make it a four-point game once more against a pesky Garden City team that refused to go away.
 
Free-throw shooting once again would become the scoring option for Cloud County as the T-Birds would be held nearly two and a half minutes without a field goal after the Duckworth three which would allow the Broncbusters to stick around. Holding a 59-56 lead with 2:56 left, Sawyer Jr. would put CCCC back up two possessions with a layup 20 seconds later before seeing Garden City score three points over the next 1:18 of action to get within two at 61-59.
 
A shot clock violation would give the ball back to the Broncbusters with just over a minute remaining as GCCC would waste no time in driving to the hoop and getting a put-back layup to tie things up with 47 seconds left on the clock. Cloud County would get the look they wanted out of a timeout as Edwards would drive to his left and put up a contested layup that would end up short and hit off the rim and into the hands of a Garden City player. With just a one-second differential between the game clock and shot clock, the Broncbusters would be unable to run the clock completely down without attempting a shot with the opportunity to score a potential game-winning bucket. Bleeding the clock down to under eight seconds before running a play, GCCC would get a fade-away jumper from Tone Hunter that would fall from just outside the free-throw line to put Garden City up 63-61 with 3.2 seconds remaining. One final play would be drawn up by Cloud County, but the Broncbuster defense would prevail and prevent the T-Birds from getting a shot off as time would expire and hand CCCC another last-second defeat.
 
Second-chance points and points off turnovers would loom large for the T-Birds as Garden City would outscore CCCC 23-19 in points off turnovers while holding an 11-4 advantage in second-chance points. The 11 second-chance points would come on 15 offensive rebounds for GCCC who would outrebound Cloud County 40-33.
 
A team-best 20 points from Duckworth would be one of just two players for the T-Birds to finish in double-figures as Sawyer Jr. would finish with 14 points and five rebounds. No player for CCCC would finish with more than six rebounds in the contest as Cloud County would commit 25 turnovers and see just 13 of the 61 points scored by bench players. Garden City would get a game-high 21 points Hunter who would also add three steals and three rebounds for the Broncbusters.
 
What's Next?
Cloud County will take on the final two teams that they have not faced off against in the KJCCC this season next week which begins with a Wednesday night tilt against Cowley Community College at 8 p.m. on January 12th. The game will mark the second straight week that the T-Birds will play host to a team that played in the NJCAA National Championship game last year as Cowley was last year's national runner-up. This year, the Tigers are off to an 8-7 start and 4-5 mark in the Jayhawk Conference after seeing Saturday's Road game at Butler postponed due to health and safety protocols.