CONCORDIA, Kan. – Scoring the first six points of the game and jumping out to leads of 15-2 and 21-5, the Cloud County Community College men's basketball team did not allow a single point to the Coffeyville Community College bench and earned a 65-55 home win inside Arley Bryant Gymnasium on Saturday, January 27th.
The 15th win of the year for the T-Birds allows CCCC to improve to 15-5 overall and 10-4 in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference while Coffeyville falls for the third time in their last four outings to drop to 9-11 overall and 5-9 in the KJCCC. With the win, Cloud County has now won three straight against Coffeyville to match a three-game winning streak against the Red Ravens from 2008-09 and 2011-12.
Made triples by sophomore
Cav Carlgren and freshman
Abdoulaye Fall were the catalyst to the 6-0 start by the T-Birds as Cloud County saw an offensive rebound and put back briefly allow Coffeyville to get on the scoreboard before responding with layups from
Cheikh Sow and Fall as part of a 10-2 start in the opening 3:49 of the contest. Finding an open
Ja'ron Briggs Jr. for another made three, the T-Birds continued to score at will over the Red Ravens with a dunk from
Kyle McElroy forcing Coffeyville head coach Jay Herkelman into an early timeout as CCCC grabbed a 15-2 lead with 15:05 left in the first half. Adding to their lead with six of the following nine points, Cloud County started the game by hitting over 61 percent of their shots to take their largest lead of the game at 21-5 with just under 13 minutes left in the first half as the double-digit advantage was kept intact over the next four minutes of play.
Holding a 15-point advantage at the midway point of the opening period, Cloud County saw Coffeyville use an 8-0 run to pull back within seven as the T-Birds were forced to endure a nearly four-minute scoring drought that eventually ended on a pair of McElroy free throws. The Cloud County lead dropped down to five on a Jahni Summers triple for Coffeyville as the Red Ravens brought the score to 28-23 with 3:53 left in the half before giving up five quick points to Cloud County as
Isaiah Sy pushed the lead back to double digits with just over a minute remaining before halftime. Coffeyville responded with a made three of their own before giving up a Carlgren layup with 33 seconds remaining to finish off the scoring of a 35-26 opening half lead for Cloud County as the T-Birds turned the ball over just five times in the period.
Five straight points by Coffeyville's Cris Carroll in the opening 1:01 of the second half quickly saw the Red Ravens pull within four at 35-31 and eventually within three on two separate occasions with things continuing to tighten up. Held to just three points in the opening six minutes of the period, Cloud County found sophomore
Ian Lavalaye in the paint for a layup to push their lead back out to five and start what became a 10-2 run capped off an
Emmanuel Manyuon triple to go back up 11 at 48-37. Following the run, Cloud County managed to maintain a double-digit lead over the next five minutes of action to carry a 55-44 lead into the final 4:33 of the game while nearly matching their largest lead with back-to-back Sy triples to push things to a 14-point advantage with just over two minutes remaining. Down the stretch, Coffeyville got no closer than eight as the T-Birds finished off the contest with a fast break dunk by Sow to put the final margin of victory at 10 to improve to 14-3 this season in games decided by 10 points or more.
A 24-of-57 (42.1 percent) shooting performance included a nine-of-22 (40.9 percent) outing from three helped offset just 11 total free throws attempted by CCCC, with eight makes accounting for a 72.7 percent free-throw percentage. Coffeyville shot 33.3 percent (19-of-57) from the floor and eight-of-30 (26.7 percent) from three while getting outscored 18-14 in points off turnovers and 30-16 in points in the paint.
Following up a career-high 35-point outing on Wednesday night at Seward County, Fall had a team-high 16 for the T-Birds to go along with six rebounds and five assists to finish as one of three players for Cloud County in double-figures. Sy (11) and Manyuon (10) also had double-figure points while Sow and McElroy each had eight and combined for 13 total rebounds. Coffeyville got a game-high 22 from Summers who went seven-of-20 from the field and five-of-13 from three to lead the Red Ravens.
What's Next?
One of the toughest remaining games on the schedule for Cloud County will see the T-Birds travel to take on number three nationally-ranked and KJCCC co-leader Barton Community College in a 7:30 PM contest on Wednesday, January 31st. The Cougars are 18-1 overall and 12-1 in the KJCCC ahead of a home contest with Pratt Community College. In the previous matchup this season back on November 26th, Barton earned a 65-53 win in Concordia.
