CONCORDIA, Kan. – Nothing came easy inside Arley Bryant Gymnasium on Saturday afternoon for the Cloud County Community College men's basketball team, but the T-Birds found a way to score the first seven points of the game and never trail to hand number eight-ranked Cowley Community College their first Kansas Jayhawk Community College loss of the season with a 78-62 home win on Saturday, January 13th.
The victory puts Cloud County at 12-4 overall on the season while improving to 7-3 in the KJCCC as Cowley drops just their second contest of the year to fall to 15-2 overall and 10-1 in the KJCCC. Prior to the loss on Saturday, Cowley by 14 points a game and had won 13 straight games dating back to a November 8 overtime loss to Northern Oklahoma-Tonkawa.
With slow starts often a concern when a team has a full week between games, that was not the case with Cloud County as the T-Birds held the Tigers scoreless for the first 4:37 of the contest and hit on two of their first four shots of the game to jump out to a 7-0 lead. After allowing a Cowley triple to cut into the lead momentarily, CCCC responded with an
Ian Lavalaye layup off a pass from
Isaiah Sy to go back up six at 9-3 as the T-Birds maintained their lead through the opening eight minutes of game action. Leading 14-8 following a made Sy three, Cloud County saw Cowley get an offensive putback before another Sy triple that pushed the lead back to seven and started an 8-0 CCCC run that put the T-Birds up 22-10. The double-digit lead for the T-Birds was maintained over the ensuing two-plus minutes before a three-point play for Cowley that started a 5-2 spurt for the Tigers to cut the Cloud County lead down to seven at 31-24 with just over four minutes left before halftime. Keeping the Tigers from cutting the lead any further, Cloud County managed to split the final 12 points of the half with Cowley while seeing the final 1:09 of the half go scoreless to allow CCCC to take a 37-30 halftime lead.
Despite controlling the opening 20 minutes of action, the feeling was anything but comfortable for the T-Birds to begin the second half as Cowley continued to stay within striking distance before cutting the deficit down to two at 42-40 on a Jeff Nwankwo layup with 15:24 remaining. Following empty offensive possessions for both teams, Cloud County used a pair of
Ja'ron Briggs Jr. free throws to get their advantage back to two possessions at 44-40 before seeing the Tigers hit a three to get within one at 44-43 and again at 46-45 with 13:23 left in the second half. Unable to hit open shots, the T-Birds continued to rely on getting to the charity stripe to score as
Cheikh Sow forced a Cowley turnover and was fouled on his way to the hoop before hitting a pair of free throws to put CCCC up 48-45 as neither team managed to put a run together.
Holding a 51-47 lead with just under nine minutes left, free throws continued to be to the benefit of Cloud County as Sow once again made his way to the line and hit on a pair of attempts to push the lead back to six to give the T-Birds some breathing room. Having endured every last push from Cowley up to that point, CCCC started to find some opening in the Tiger defense to score layups from Briggs Jr. and
Kyle McElroy to extend their lead to eight at 63-55 that was followed by a Sy triple to go back up double-digits at 66-55. A bucket from Cowley briefly brought the deficit for the Tigers back under 10 before another three from Sy allowed Cloud County to take a 69-57 lead with 3:31 remaining as the T-Birds saw both time and foul trouble begin to become a factor for their opponent. Cloud County's lead eventually grew to 18 with an 8-2 spurt by the T-Birds to put the game out of reach with 1:04 remaining as the Tigers scored just three points over the final three minutes and never were able to mount a comeback.
For the third consecutive game, Cloud County shot over 50 percent from the field by going 23-of-45 (51.1 percent) from the floor including a five-of-15 (33.3 percent) mark from three along with a season-high 27 made free throws (27-of-39, 69.2 percent). Cowley was limited to a 38.2 percent (21-of-55) shooting effort and five-of-20 (25.0 percent) mark from three after entering the game shooting nearly 47 percent from the field and hitting 15-of-20 (75.0 percent) of their free throw attempts. Rebounding ended in a 35-29 advantage for CCCC as the T-Birds also held a 17-4 advantage in points off turnovers and a 34-28 advantage in points in the paint. Second-chance points saw Cowley edge CCCC 14-11.
Following up last Saturday's performance that saw five players in double-figures, Cloud County once again had five different players score at least 10 points with Briggs Jr. scoring a team-high 17 points with 11 points coming from the charity stripe to go along with five rebounds and four assists. Sy scored 16 off the bench with five made triples and had six rebounds while Sow and
Emmanuel Manyuon both had 11 points. CCCC's fifth player to reach double figures was McElroy who had 10 points and five rebounds in 32 minutes of action. Cowley was led by a game-high 21 points from Azhonte Dallas as three Tigers (Dallas, Nwankwo, and Shammarrie Hugie) combined for 48 of their 62 total points.
What's Next?
Another ranked opponent is in store for Cloud County as 20th-ranked Butler Community College will host the T-Birds for a 7:30 PM contest inside the Power Plant in El Dorado on Wednesday, January 17th. The Grizzlies have won five of their past six games with the lone loss coming by a score of 63-60 to Hutchinson on January 3rd. Butler outlasted Pratt 70-67 on the road Saturday afternoon in overtime to improve to 13-3 overall and 8-2 in the KJCCC as all three losses have come to nationally ranked foes.
