COLBY, Kan. – Needing a win along with some help from Pratt, the Cloud County Community College men's basketball team would leave little doubt in taking care of business on the road Wednesday night to dispatch Colby Community College by a final score of 101-69 inside the Colby Events Center in Colby, Kansas on Wednesday, March 1st.
In addition to picking up their 15th win of the year to improve to 15-15 overall and 11-13 in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference, the T-Birds would get the help they needed following an 80-79 Beaver road win over Cowley to allow the T-Birds to secure the eighth and final hosting seed in the upcoming NJCAA Region VI Tournament. Colby sees their season end at 5-25 overall while ending the year with a 2-22 mark in the KJCCC.
Scoring points seemingly at will throughout the first half, CCCC would jump out to a quick 8-3 lead before going up 11-7 as three different T-Birds would connect on shots from beyond the arc in the opening five minutes of play. After getting
Joe Kearney's second made triple of the game to go up 14-7, Cloud County would continue to feast on a strong shooting performance to go up double-digits at 19-9 following a
Corey Sawyer Jr. steal and transition layup with 12:45 left in the opening period.
The lead for CCCC would grow to 12 at 21-9 before seeing the Trojans manage to score 10 of the next 14 points to get back within six at 25-19 before quickly seeing the lead for the T-Birds pushed back out to double-digits at 31-21. Using an 11-4 run to push their lead towards the brink of reaching the 20-point mark, CCCC would continue to see their best shooting half of the season grow their lead as 19 of the first 31 shots taken by Cloud County would fall as part of a 52-point opening half to hold a commanding 52-34 lead into the locker room at the half.
Maintaining their lead throughout the opening minutes of the second half, the T-Birds would manage to see different players contribute on the offensive end to continue what had been a balanced team effort that saw four players reach double-figures in the first half. The lead for CCCC would eventually grow to 26 at 69-43 before being extended even further to hit the 30-point mark at 83-53 with just under nine minutes remaining as Cloud County could seemingly do no wrong on the offensive end. Surpassing their previous season high of 92 with 4:30 left in the game, the T-Birds would make one final offensive push to break the century mark for the first time under second-year head coach
Devin Kastrup while outscoring the Trojans by 14 in the final 20 minutes after holding a plus-18 margin in the first half.
Shooting over 60 percent from the floor in the opening period, Cloud County would finish the game with a 54.4 percent (37-of-68) shooting performance while going 11-of-23 (47.8 percent) from three and outscoring Colby 31-7 in points off turnovers. The Trojans meanwhile would shoot 47.1 percent (24-for-51) from the field but ultimately be hampered by 22 turnovers and just 13 bench points despite outrebounding CCCC 34-30.
A total of six players for the T-Birds would finish in double-figures with Sawyer Jr. scoring a team-high 20 points and recording seven steals while both
Andre Gray II and Kearney would score 15 each.
Malang Athian and
Justin Graham would combine for 14 points each and 13 total rebounds (seven for Athian) while
Moaz Mohamed would score a career-high 12 points in 11 minutes off the bench.
What's Next?
For the second-straight weekend, Cloud County will host Cowley Community College in a 4 PM contest inside Arley Bryant Gymnasium with the upcoming weekend tilt serving as the opening round of the NJCAA Region VI Tournament. The game will be the first time that CCCC has hosted an NJCAA Region VI Playoff game since the 2018-19 season which also happens to be the last time that the T-Birds finished with a record above .500. Saturday's game will mark the second-straight season that Cloud County has played in the 8v9 NJCAA Region VI Tournament game, dropping an 80-71 decision at Colby on February 26th of last year.
