CONCORDIA, Kan. – First-half offensive struggles would put the Cloud County Community College women's basketball team in a 31-13 halftime hole as a second-half comeback would come up five-point short in a 52-47 road loss at Northwest Kansas Technical College inside Max Jones Fieldhouse in Goodland, Kansas on Thursday, January 19th.
The loss drops Cloud County to 12-7 overall on the year and 7-6 in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference as Northwest Tech manages to salvage a season split with the T-Birds while improving to 6-12 overall and 2-11 in the KJCCC.
Scoring the opening point of the contest to take their only lead of the game 14 seconds into the first quarter, Cloud County would see the Mavericks six of the first eight points while limiting CCCC to just two free throws over the opening four minutes of play before a
Josephine Igherighe layup with 5:56 left in the opening period for their first field goal of the game. Scoring would continue to be an issue throughout the rest of the first quarter for Cloud County however as NWKT would score nine of the next 10 points to take a 15-5 lead before seeing each team score two points each in the final 2:08 of the quarter to put the score at 17-7 in favor of Northwest Tech heading to the second.
A 10-0 run by the Mavericks to open the second quarter would have things go from bad to worse for CCCC as the deficit would reach the 20-point mark with 5:22 left in the first half. Breaking a nearly eight-minute of game time scoring drought, Cloud County would score their first points of the quarter with a
Kayla Horton jumper and score six of the final 10 points of the half to trail by a 31-13 score.
Fortunately for the T-Birds, the offense would finally start to come together early in the second half as layups from
Maimouna Sissoko and Igherighe would start a 13-0 run to cut an 18-point halftime deficit down to five. In addition to matching their first-half offensive output in the first six minutes of the third quarter, CCCC would also manage to hold Northwest Tech scoreless for the first seven minutes of the second half to eventually pull within a point at 33-32 with 1:49 left in the quarter. Following the run by Cloud County, NWKT would manage to score five points in the final 57 seconds of the period to outscore CCCC 5-2 down the stretch and hold a 38-34 lead heading to the fourth.
Once again, a slow start to a quarter would spell trouble for the T-Birds as the Mavericks would open the final 10 minutes of action by scoring the first four points of the fourth while holding the T-Birds scoreless for over two minutes. A
Te Araroa Sopoaga layup followed by two
Alize Ruiz free throws would see Cloud County get back within four at 42-38, but be offset over the next two-plus minutes of action with three points from the Mavericks. Trailing 45-38 with 3:55 remaining in the game, CCCC would manage to close within a possession on a Sissoko layup and again with 1:37 remaining but never be able to completely close the gap as the Mavericks would hit free throws and handle the T-Bird pressure down the stretch to hang on for the win.
10 of Cloud County's 13 field goals would come in the second half as CCCC would shoot just 26.0 percent (13-of-50) from the field while not making a single three-point attempt (zero-for-12). Missed opportunities would also come at the charity stripe as CCCC would shoot a season-high 34 free throws but make just 21 for a 61.8 percent free throw percentage. The T-Birds would also be guilty of 31 turnovers and be outrebounded 36-35 despite holding an 11-4 advantage in second-chance points.
The starting five for Cloud County would account for 46 of the 47 points scored by the T-Birds on the night with Ruiz scoring a team-high 13 points to go with a game-high 16 rebounds. Sopoaga (11) and Igherighe (10) would also reach double-figures while Sissoko would be the next highest CCCC scorer with eight. Northwest Tech would get a game-high 18 points from Sarengbe Sanogo who would record a double-double by grabbing 11 rebounds to go along with the points.
What's Next?
A short turnaround will see Cloud County back on the road Saturday evening for a 5:30 PM tip-off inside the Hutchinson Sports Arena to take on Hutchinson Community College. The Blue Dragons were on the road Wednesday night and earned an 82-58 victory over Independence Community College to improve to 15-4 overall and 9-4 in the KJCCC.
