CONCORDIA, Kan. – Forcing 24 turnovers which led to 31 points, the Cloud County Community College women's basketball team finished off a regular season sweep of visiting Colby Community College with a 75-55 home win inside Arley Bryant Gymnasium on Wednesday, February 14th.
Snapping a four-game losing streak in the process, Cloud County improves to 13-11 overall and 9-10 in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference while the Trojans have now dropped their past five contests to fall to 6-17 overall and 2-16 in the KJCCC.
Although the final score indicated a 20-point win for the T-Birds, things did not come easy throughout the first 10 minutes of play as Colby connected on each of their first two shots from outside the arc to jump out to a 6-2 as CCCC was forced to rely on points at the charity stripe in the opening three minutes while being held without a field goal until the 6:39 mark of the first quarter. Closing to within two at 8-6 on a made
Maimouna Sissoko jumper, Cloud County saw Colby push their lead back to six at 12-6 before getting a
Kirya Mack layup that sparked a 14-0 run by the T-Birds to go up 20-12 with two minutes left in the opening period. After holding the Trojans scoreless for four minutes, Cloud County saw Colby finish out the first with eight of the final nine points to cut an eight-point deficit down to just a single point at 21-20 to finish off an entertaining opening quarter.
Trading made layups in the first 1:02 of the second, Cloud County managed to push their lead back out to six following a 5-0 spurt with sophomore
Josephine Igherighe scoring five of CCCC's opening seven points. Taking their first double-digit lead of the game on a made
Destiny Smith trey with 3:29 left before halftime, the T-Birds saw Colby claw their way back to within seven with four straight points over the ensuing two minutes of action before allowing a pair of Igherighe free throws with five seconds left in the half to give Cloud County a 37-28 lead at the break.
Continuing a trend of getting to the charity stripe, CCCC scored the first four points of the third quarter at the free throw line while getting their first field goal of the second half with 7:37 left in the quarter on a made
Bailey Burns bucket that put the T-Birds up 43-33. A steal by Sissoko led to a made triple for the Bamako, Mali native at the top of the key as part of a 9-2 Cloud County run to make things a 50-35 contest with 4:46 remaining in the quarter as CCCC started to put some distance between the two teams. The lead for Cloud County continued to grow throughout the remainder of the period as 16 of the final 20 points in the third were scored by the T-Birds to take a commanding 66-40 lead heading to the fourth.
It didn't take long for CCCC to run their lead to a full 30-point margin as the T-Birds scored eight of the first 11 points of the fourth to go up 73-43 with 7:18 remaining with just about everything going the way of Cloud County. A 10-2 run by Colby over the next six minutes of action brought the Trojans back within 22 at 75-53, but with time down to just 1:21 remaining in the contest, only one more field goal was scored in the game with a nine-point fourth quarter ultimately not affecting the T-Birds.
In addition to scoring 31 points off of Colby turnovers, CCCC went a sizzling 20-of-22 (90.9 percent) from the free throw line which included a 14-for-16 effort in the first half while shooting 46.3 percent (25-of-54) from the field. The T-Birds also held a 38-22 advantage in points in the paint and a 12-10 advantage in second-chance points to overcome a 31-29 rebounding deficit as Colby shot 40.0 percent (22-of-55) from the floor.
Four of Cloud County's five starters reached double-figures including a game-high 24 points from Sissoko while Igherighe had 19 points and a game-high seven rebounds. Smith scored 12 points and recorded four steals in the game while
Darcy Lierz also reached double-figures by scoring 10 points on four-of-seven shooting. Colby was led by a team-best effort of 15 points from Sofia Lopez as nine of the 10 players who saw action for the Trojans wound up in the scoring column.
What's Next?
The final road Saturday game of the regular season for Cloud County will see the T-Birds head to Independence for a 2 PM contest with the Pirates on Saturday, February 17th. Independence has lost three of their past four games to fall to 13-11 overall and 7-11 in the KJCCC with their most recent outing coming in the result of a 56-55 road loss at Pratt. The first meeting this season between Cloud County and ICC saw the T-Birds win by a score of 77-57 as CCCC led for nearly 39 minutes of the game and never trailed by more than a single point.
