EL DORADO, Kan. – Double-digit runs by host and 14th-ranked Butler Community College in each of the first two quarters of action put the Cloud County Community College women's basketball team in a position of playing from behind en route to an 82-58 road defeat inside the Power Plant in El Dorado, Kansas on Wednesday, January 17th.
Having a four-game winning streak snapped, Cloud County is now 10-6 overall and 6-5 in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference with one more game remaining to reach the half-way point of the 24-game KJCCC schedule. Butler improves to 15-2 overall and 9-2 in the KJCCC to remain one-half game back of second in the league behind Dodge City.
Starting the game out just one-of-six from the floor, CCCC was still able to avoid a large deficit as BCCC did not fare much better themselves with just two made field goals in their opening eight attempts to lead by a score of 5-2 after three minutes of play. Following a made field goal by sophomore
Maimouna Sissoko to get Cloud County on the scoreboard, the T-Birds turned back to the Bamako, Mali native to pull within one at 5-4 with a made layup before seeing Butler expand their lead to 8-4 with a made free throw and layup. An open
Destiny Smith triple allowed CCCC to get back within a point before taking the lead on a
Josephine Igherighe layup with 4:45 remaining in the opening quarter, but the scoring in the period came to a screeching halt as the T-Birds endured a 4:01 scoring drought that allowed Butler to score 10 straight points to go up 18-9. The drought ended with an Igherighe layup that allowed Cloud County to keep the deficit in single digits to end the quarter as Butler answered back with the final two points of the period to grab a 20-11 lead.
Continuing to feed the hot hand of Igherighe, two layups from the Minneapolis, Minnesota native kept Cloud County within striking distance in the opening minutes of the second before a pair of Brittanie Brickhouse layups for Butler that gave the Grizzlies their first double-digit lead of the game. The lead for BCCC grew to 19 as Butler put together a 10-2 run to double up the T-Birds at 38-19 with 3:38 remaining in the first half with BCCC having little issue scoring inside the paint. Things did not get much better for Cloud County down the stretch as Butler eventually pushed their lead over 20 with just over a minute left in the quarter before giving up back-to-back Igherighe layups to get back within 17 at 44-27 at the intermission break.
Slowly chipping away at the deficit over the first four minutes of the second half, Cloud County kept Butler from extending their lead before making a 7-2 run to get back within 11 at 50-39 with 6:09 remaining as
Darcy Lierz hit her first of two made threes in the game. A response from Butler with a made Grizzly triple quickly put a stop to the growing momentum in favor of CCCC as the T-Birds could not get the score back within single digits despite getting within 10 on two separate occasions over the next four minutes of play. Hanging within striking distance eventually proved to allow Cloud County to cut the deficit down to eight with two Igherighe free throws capping off a 23-point third quarter for CCCC before giving up a layup in the final 16 seconds to trail 60-50 heading into the fourth.
All the efforts of cutting a 17-point deficit down to eight late in the third were erased in the opening three minutes of the fourth as Butler opened the final frame by scoring the first 10 points of the quarter while not allowing a field goal over the first 3:25. With the deficit having doubled and the T-Birds starting to run out opportunities at getting back into the contest, Cloud County could do no more than match the Grizzlies over the next five minutes of action with no change coming in the scoring margin until BCCC scored the final four points of the game over the final 2:16.
Held to their fourth-lowest shooting percentage of the year, Cloud County finished the game with a 30.4 percent (21-of-69) field goal percentage while going four-of-19 (21.1 percent) from three and 12-for-19 (63.2 percent) from the charity stripe. Butler fared slightly better by going 32-of-77 (41.6 percent) from the field and three-of-13 (23.1 percent) from beyond the arc and a 15-of-25 (60.0 percent) outing from the free throw line. Rebounding was a 54-42 advantage in favor of Butler along with a 54-30 advantage in points in the paint for the Grizzlies as Cloud County could not overcome 22 offensive rebounds for BCC leading to 29 second-chance points.
A 21-point, 10-rebound double-double for Igherighe was combined with a 16-point, nine-rebound effort from Sissoko as the two combined for 37 of Cloud County's 58 points and nearly half of their rebounds as no other T-Bird scored more than six points in the game. Butler was led by a game-high 32 points from Freddie Wallace who added 13 rebounds and two blocks in the win.
What's Next?
The script flips for Cloud County from taking on one of the top teams in the KJCCC to taking on the only team still searching for a conference win this season in the Jayhawk Conference as Northwest Kansas Technical College will make a visit to Arley Bryant Gymnasium for a 2 PM contest on Saturday, January 20th. Northwest Tech dropped an 87-77 home decision to Pratt on Wednesday evening to drop to 1-14 overall and 0-11 in the KJCCC. Cloud County and NWKT met three times last season, with Cloud County winning the season series 2-1 as the T-Birds earned a 77-35 win at home in the regular season along with an 84-68 win in the opening round of the NJCAA Region VI Tournament in Concordia.
