COFFEYVILLE, Kan. – In need of a win to keep their NJCAA Region VI Tournament home playoff chances alive, the Cloud County Community College men's basketball team would put together a true team effort with four players scoring in double-figures and recording just 10 turnovers to defeat Coffeyville Community College by a score of 63-56 on the road inside of Nellis Hall in Coffeyville, Kansas on Monday, February 14th.
Snapping a nine-game losing streak to the Red Ravens, the T-Birds earned their first win over Coffeyville since November 26, 2016 to improve to 12-15 overall and 8-13 in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference. The win at Coffeyville is the first for CCCC since the 2011-2012 season when Cloud County defeated the Red Ravens 78-68 on December 2, 2011. Coffeyville meanwhile has lost two of their last three to fall to 13-12 overall and 10-9 in the KJCCC.
Points would be hard to come by in the opening four minutes of action as a Coffeyville turnover would lead to a
Nate Duckworth jump shot in the first minute of the contest before seeing just one made field goal by the Red Ravens lead to a 2-2 tie after 4:04 of action. Coffeyville would then take the lead momentarily before giving up a bucket to
Justin Graham which would be followed by more points off turnovers for Cloud County as the T-Birds would take advantage of early mistakes by the Red Ravens. As things continued in the first half, CCCC would add to their lead with five straight points from freshman
Joe Kearney with the Cloud County lead growing to as many as seven in the opening 10 minutes of the contest.
The lead for the T-Birds would manage to remain two possessions for much of the first half as
Savian Edwards would connect on a triple as part of a 7-2 run by the Topeka, Kansas native that would give CCCC their largest lead of the first half at 22-14. Coffeyville would have a response however by scoring five straight to get back within three at 22-19 with 4:11 left before halftime as the scoring would slow down again and see just eight points down the stretch with Cloud County accounting for five of the points to go up 27-22 at the break.
A strong start by Coffeyville to the second half would see the Red Ravens score the first six points of the second period to put Cloud County in just their second deficit of the game, but it would be short-lived as a pair of
Zion Obanla free throws would be followed by a jump shot from the New York, New York native to put the T-Birds up 31-28.
Corey Sawyer Jr. would then get in on the second-half scoring action by nailing a three as part of an 8-0 T-Bird run that would put Cloud County back up seven at 35-28 with just over 12 minutes remaining. Just like the first half, Coffeyville would put together another run to close the gap and get within to on a Love Bettis field goal with 10:44 left before back-to-back triples from Edwards and Graham would spark an 8-0 run to give CCCC their first double-digit lead of the game.
Cloud County would manage to grow their lead to 12 with 6:39 remaining as
Malang Athian would offset a Deng Maya field goal in the paint with a shot from beyond the arc to make it a 51-39 contest as the T-Birds would begin to sense a possible road upset. Free throw shooting would begin to become a factor for CCCC as the next three T-Bird points would come at the charity stripe to try and offset what would become a three-plus minute drought without a made field goal. Despite the limited scoring, Cloud County would continue to hold the Red Ravens in check on the defensive end to maintain their double-digit lead up until the final 37 seconds where Coffeyville would score the final five points to avoid their second-lowest scoring output of the year.
As a team, Cloud County would shoot 47.9 percent (23-of-48) from the field while hitting on eight-of-18 (44.4 percent) of their shots from beyond the arc compared to a 21-for-53 (39.6 percent) performance from Coffeyville. Both teams would take advantage of their limited free throw opportunities as the T-Birds finished nine-for-11 (81.8 percent) from the charity stripe compared to an eight-of-10 (80.0 percent) performance from the Red Ravens.
With no player scoring more than 14 points for CCCC, Athian would lead the T-Birds with 14 points and five rebounds alongside Kearney who scored 13 points and grabbed four rebounds of his own. Graham would be limited to just three boards on the glass but manage to reach double-figure scoring with 10 points in the game while Edwards would score 12 points off the bench and go five-for-seven from the field. Coffeyville would get a game-best 26 points from Bettis to go along with seven rebounds and three assists from the Pensacola, Florida native.
What's Next?
Cloud County is set to host one of the hottest teams in the conference in number-16 ranked Garden City Community College in an 8 PM tip-off on Wednesday, February 16th. GCCC has lost just once since the calendar turned to 2022, falling by a score of 103-96 to number-five ranked Dodge City on February 3rd. In their past 14 games, the Broncbusters are 13-1 which included a 63-61 win over Cloud County on January 8th.
