GARDEN CITY, Kan. – Building a nine-point halftime lead, the Cloud County Community College women's basketball team would manage to hold off a late charge from host Garden City Community College to win by a final score of 63-58 inside Conestoga Arena in Garden City, Kansas on Saturday, January 8th.
 
The surging T-Birds pick up their third straight win to improve to 9-7 overall and get back to .500 in Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference play at 5-5 while the host Lady Broncbusters fall to 10-4 overall and 5-4 in the KJCCC.
 
Defense would be the story of the opening quarter of action as the two squads would combine for just nine field goals and 13 turnovers while no free throws would be attempted in the quarter. Things would sit at a 4-4 tie after 2:11 of action with each team grabbing an early lead of two points before seeing Cloud County reclaim the lead at 6-4 on a Kay Hauata Phillips layup. A four-minute scoring drought for GCCC would end on a triple with 3:49 left in the quarter to allow Garden City to go back up by a score of 7-6 as Kealani Neves would connect on back-to-back triples to allow the Broncbusters to stay in the lead. Cloud County would have the final answer of the quarter however as freshman Paula Puzule would hit her first trey of the game with 1:33 left in the first to give CCCC an 11-10 lead that would wind up being the score at the end of the quarter.
 
Four quick points by the Broncbusters in the opening minute of the second period would allow Garden City to reclaim the lead again as the T-Birds would be faced with a 14-11 deficit. A Kennedy Becker layup and Puzule three would put CCCC back on top by a score of 16-14 as Cloud County would score 11 of the next 13 points to take a six-point lead with 5:49 left in the first half. Defense would continue to be the story of the first half for the T-Birds as Garden City would be held to just a pair of free throws from the 7:53 mark until just seven seconds left in the half as the T-Birds would finish off a 14-2 run that put CCCC up by a score of 30-18. A three-point play to end the half in the final seconds would allow the Lady Broncbusters to get back within single digits as the score would sit at a 30-21 Cloud County lead heading into halftime.
 
Adding to their lead in the opening minutes of the second half, Cloud County would get a Te Araroa Sopoaga triple to start the scoring and begin a 6-2 spurt to the third quarter that would allow the T-Birds to take their largest lead of the game at 36-23. CCCC's double-digit lead would hold throughout the opening five minutes of the third quarter before seeing Garden City use a 7-0 run to get back within four at 37-33 with 3:21 remaining. Freshman Makayla Twyman would end a four-minute scoring drought for Cloud County with a layup to put the T-Birds back up six as CCCC would score four of the final six points of the quarter to hang onto a 41-35 lead after three-quarters of action.
 
The Lady Broncbusters would pull back within four on a layup with 9:02 left in the game, but Cloud County would respond by scoring the next seven points with Sopoaga capping off the run to put the T-Birds up 11 with just over seven minutes left. CCCC would match their largest lead of the game with 4:34 left in the contest as Sopoaga would score her final points of the afternoon on a layup before fouling out with 2:49 remaining. Back-to-back triples by Garden City would allow GCCC to build some momentum and begin to mount a rally that would see the 13-point Cloud County lead cut all the down to three at 56-53 with 1:39 remaining, with free-throw shooting becoming the deciding factor in the game. Attempting 10 free throws down the stretch, the T-Birds would manage to connect on seven of their attempts while outpacing Garden City 7-5 when it mattered most to hang on for the five-point victory.
 
Finishing with a 40-32 advantage in the rebounding column, Cloud County would shoot 43.5 percent (20-of-46) from the floor including a nine-of-17 (52.9 percent) performance in the second half while holding Garden City to a 28.3 percent (17-of-60) outing and five-of-19 (26.3 percent) performance from three. Free-throw shooting would be suspect for both squads as both teams would finish under 66 percent from the charity stripe, but it would be the T-Birds going 10-for-14 (71.4 percent) from the line in the fourth quarter after starting the day just seven-of-13 (53.8 percent) from the free-throw line.
 
Notching her fifth double-double of the year would be Sopoaga who would finish with a game-best 17 points and 11 rebounds while adding three of CCCC's seven blocks. The remaining four blocks would come from Phillips who also grabbed 10 rebounds and had one assist in 25 minutes of action. Two other starters for the T-Birds would finish in double-figures with Rori Cox netting 14 points and Puzule scoring 13 with the two combining for five of Cloud County's six threes.
 
What's Next?
Cloud County will return home to host two of their next three games which begins on Wednesday, January 12th as the T-Birds will take on Cowley Community College at 6 p.m. The Tigers hold a 9-5 overall record and 5-4 conference mark after having their scheduled contest against Butler Community College on Saturday afternoon postponed due to health and safety protocols.