CONCORDIA, Kan. – Trailing by six with 3:51 remaining, the Cloud County Community College women's basketball team found a much-needed surge down the stretch to outscore visiting Cowley 13-4 to overcome a late deficit and grind out a 71-68 home win inside Arley Bryant Gymnasium on Saturday, January 13th.
Earning a fourth-straight win dating back to December 10th, Cloud County improves to 10-5 overall and 6-4 in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference to sit in a tie for fifth while Cowley sees a three-game winning streak snapped with their first loss of 2024 to fall to 10-7 overall and 4-7 in the KJCCC.
Controlling the glass and grabbing four of the first five rebounds of the game, Cloud County traded buckets with Cowley over the first 1:21 of the game before taking the lead with a
Maimouna Sissoko layup followed by a
Josephine Igherighe layup to grab a 6-2 lead three minutes into the contest. CCCC's lead grew to eight at 12-4 as Igherighe and Sissoko continued to give the T-Birds a dominant presence in the paint with the first 12 Cloud County points coming on layups while forcing the Tigers to go 3:17 between made field goals. Holding a 12-6 lead with 4:17 left in the opening quarter, Cloud County continued to see their lead cut as Cowley forced CCCC into a scoring drought of 5:07 that allowed the Tigers to tie the game at 12-12 before a made three from
Darcy Lierz to put the T-Birds back out in front. Cloud County managed to end the quarter with Igherighe converting a back-court steal into an easy layup with 17 seconds left before forcing a missed field goal to end the quarter as CCCC held a 17-12 going into the second.
Taking advantage of the opening possession with an Igherighe bucket in the paint, Cloud County quickly pushed their lead back to seven and maintained a two-possession lead over the first five minutes of the second quarter with both the T-Birds and Tigers trading points back and forth. With the score sitting at 27-22 in favor of CCCC, Cowley managed to connect on a pair of free throws that started a 7-2 run to tie the game at 29-29 but once again got turned back by Cloud County with a made
Bailey Burns triple to put the T-Birds back on top by a score of 32-29. Responding with a made triple of their own, the Tigers eventually battled through two more ties to take their first lead at 36-34 with 44 seconds left before halftime as eight of the final 10 points of the half were scored by Cowley to put Cloud County in a 37-34 halftime hole.
Only four points for each team were scored in the first five minutes of the third quarter as points proved to be hard to come by with both teams struggling to pick up where they left off following the intermission break. Continuing to trade points back and forth, Cloud County saw a four-point deficit grow to six with 4:02 left in the quarter before getting an open three from Burns followed by an Igherighe fast break layup to pull within one at 46-45 as momentum began to shift in favor of the T-Birds. Another three from Burns after an empty possession from Cowley allowed Cloud County to retake the lead at 48-42 until another strong finish to a quarter by the Tigers saw Cowley score seven of the final 10 points to go back up by a score of 53-51 at the end of the third.
Getting sophomore
Destiny Smith involved with a made three, Cloud County reclaimed the lead just 36 seconds into the fourth quarter and managed to retain their lead over the first two and a half minutes of the fourth before seeing Cowley use two free throws 49 seconds apart to go back up 57-56 and set up what was looking more and more likely to be a tight finish. Five more points for Cowley allowed the Tigers to take their largest lead of the contest at 62-56 with 5:19 left before matching the lead with 3:51 remaining to head into the final stretch of the contest. With both teams in the bonus, Cloud County used a pair of free throws from Lierz followed by a Sissoko layup to get within two with 2:57 remaining before seeing Cowley extend the lead back to four with an open layup. Getting back to the free throw line, CCCC saw Burns hit on two free throws to once again get within two before an Igherighe layup with 57 seconds left to tie the game at 66-66 as possessions were becoming more and more valuable. Creating a turnover at mid-court, Lierz took full advantage of causing the turnover by driving to the hoop and giving Cloud County the sixth and final lead change of the game as the score became 68-66 in favor of the T-Birds.
Cowley managed to draw a foul to get to the free throw line but missed on both attempts for an empty possession that forced the Tigers to foul with less than 20 seconds remaining as Lierz made her way to the charity stripe and converted one of two attempts. After both teams used one of their remaining two timeouts, Cowley drew another T-Birds foul and managed to make both free throw attempts to get back within one before fouling Igherighe who pushed the CCCC lead back to three at 71-68 with 1.8 seconds remaining as the Tigers used their final timeout to advance the ball into the frontcourt. Locking down on defense, Cloud County forced a contested three from Cowley's Anna Przyszlak that was off the mark as time expired to allow the T-Birds to earn their first win of the year by three points or less.
Managing to offset Cowley from three after seeing both teams go eight-of-24 (33.3 percent) from beyond the arc, Cloud County outshot the Tigers by going 25-for-66 (37.9 percent) from the field to Cowley's 22-of-69 (31.9 percent) effort to go along with a season-best 13-for-14 (92.9 percent) effort from the free throw line. CCCC edged the Tiger 30-26 in points in the paint and 12-10 in second-chance points while overcoming a 20-9 deficit in points off turnovers by holding a 52-36 advantage in rebounds.
Reigning KJCCC and NJCAA Division I Player of the Week Sissoko followed up her school-record-tying 22-rebound performance last Saturday by hauling in another 21 rebounds to go along with 10 points for a double-double while Igherighe scored a team-high 20 points on six-of-10 shooting with a perfect eight-of-eight effort from the free throw line. Burns scored 18 points to join the duo in double-figures alongside a 12-point effort from Lierz while Smith finished one point shy of double-figures with nine points. Cowley got a game-high 24 points from Jaiden Smith who went six-of-11 from three and had six steals along with five rebounds.
What's Next?
For the fifth time this season, Cloud County will play a ranked foe as number-eight-ranked Butler is next up for the T-Birds on Wednesday, January 17th at 5:30 PM in El Dorado, Kansas. Butler bounced back from a stunning home loss to Independence on Wednesday night by defeating Pratt 93-72 in Pratt on Saturday afternoon to improve to 14-2 overall and 8-2 in the KJCCC. Cloud County will look to snap a 10-game losing streak to Butler dating back to the 2018-19 season as the last win over the Grizzlies for the T-Birds came on February 14th, 2018 with a 54-43 home win.
