Cloud County Women's Basketball Defeats Northwest Kansas Tech 77-66

A slow start that found the Cloud County Community College women's basketball team holding a six-point halftime lead was quickly pushed out to a game-high 18 in the third quarter before having to hold on for a 77-66 home win over Northwest Kansas Technical College inside Arley Bryant Gymnasium on Saturday, January 20th.

Bouncing back from Wednesday's road loss with their ninth home win of the year, Cloud County improves to 11-6 overall and 7-5 in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference while NW KS Tech remains winless in the KJCCC at 0-12 while holding a 1-15 overall record.

Taking their first and only lead of the opening quarter with a pair of Josephine Igherighe free throws to open the scoring, Cloud County saw the Mavericks use a 12-0 run to open a 10-point lead at 12-2 with 6:13 left in the first period thanks in part to a pair of made triples. Ending a scoring drought of 4:20 with a Bailey Burns steal and fastbreak layup, Cloud County managed to turn two Northwest Tech turnovers into easy points that sparked a 9-0 T-Bird run to cut the deficit down to one at 12-11. More hot shooting from beyond the arc by the Mavericks allowed Northwest Tech to push their lead back out to four with their third and final trey of the quarter as the two teams were each held to just one free throw in the final two minutes to see the score settle at 16-12 after 10 minutes of action.

Wasting little time to pull the score back even, Cloud County scored on two of their opening three possessions while holding NWKT scoreless over the opening 2:17 of the quarter to tie things at 16-16 before once again seeing the Mavericks turn to three-point shooting to get back out in front by a score of 19-16. Trailing 21-18 with seven minutes left before halftime, Cloud County used a pair of Igherighe free throws to get within one before eventually tying things back up at 24-24 on a Maimouna Sissoko jumper just past the halfway point of the quarter. Despite pulling even, Cloud County was not able to reclaim the lead until a Burns layup with 2:06 left before intermission to put CCCC up 31-29 with the T-Birds finishing off what became a 9-0 run a minute later on an Igherighe fastbreak layup. Down the stretch of the final minute of the half, both Northwest Tech and Cloud County managed to make one final field goal with a Maverick turnover all but ending the half to allow CCCC to take a 37-31 lead at the break.

Having led for just 2:39 of the first half, Cloud County was able to maintain their two-possession lead throughout the first three-plus minutes of the third quarter before putting together a 5-0 spurt to go up double-digits at 44-34 following a Destiny Smith three-point play. Hanging around, Northwest Tech dropped Cloud County's lead back down to single digits a minute later as endured a scoring drought of nearly four minutes until a pair of Sissoko free throws to go back up double-digits at 48-37 as the next eight points of the game were scored by Sissoko. With the lead having grown to 14, CCCC found Igherighe for an easy bucket in the paint followed by two free throws from the Minneapolis, Minnesota native in the final 15 seconds of the quarter to take their largest lead of the game at 56-38 before allowing a three-point play by Northwest Tech to end the quarter and settle for a 15-point lead heading to the fourth.

Free throws accounted for each of the first six points of the final quarter with Northwest Tech connecting on all four of their attempts while seeing Cloud County get two from Igherighe as the first field goal of the quarter came with 8:03 left in the game. Following a made three by NWKT's Alexzandria Thompson, Northwest Tech remained aggressive offensively to get to the free throw line and score an additional five points to cap off an 8-0 run that suddenly found the Mavericks down just five at 58-53. Needing a response to try and slow the run, Cloud County got an Igherighe free throw before seeing their first field goal of the quarter come with 5:28 remaining as Darcy Lierz worked her way into the paint for a made bucket to put CCCC back up six at 61-55.

Things started to pick up pace both ways with the T-Birds making the most of the opportunity as Cadence Nondorf and Igherighe both managed to score fast break layups to put CCCC back up 10 at 65-55 with the lead growing to 12 with 1:37 remaining following a made Sissoko free throw. Continuing to try and hit from three, Northwest Tech was able to get the deficit back down to nine and eventually eight with 56 seconds remaining but no closer as free throw shooting by the T-Birds got the lead back out to 10 before finishing with a final margin of 11.

Doubling up Northwest Tech 16-8 in fast break points and holding advantages of 40-22 in points in the paint and 17-6 in second-chance points, Cloud County finished the game shooting 40.3 percent (25-of-62) from the field and 25-of-37 (67.6 percent) from the charity stripe. The Mavericks managed to outscore CCCC 27-6 from beyond the arc after shooting 39.1 percent (nine-of-23) from three as part of a 35.6 percent (21-of-59) outing from the field while adding 15 points in a 15-for-21 (71.4 percent) performance from the charity stripe.

Four of Cloud County's five starters found their way into double-figures with both Igherighe (25 points, 11 rebounds) and Sissoko (23 points, 16 rebounds) recording double-doubles to lead the T-Birds. Burns scored 14 points and grabbed six rebounds while Smith scored 10 in 29 minutes of action with the starting five scoring 74 of the 77 points scored by CCCC. Northwest Tech was led by a game-high 30 points from Thompson who went nine-of-11 from the free throw line and added four assists.  

What's Next?
The KJCCC schedule resets for round two of the 24-game home-and-home setup and will feature the longest road trip in the KJCCC for the T-Birds as the first game with a trip to Liberal, Kansas to take on Seward County Community College at 6 PM on Wednesday, January 24th. Seward County defeated Pratt by a score of 66-61 on Saturday evening in Pratt to improve to 10-8 overall and 6-6 in the KJCCC. In the KJCCC opener for both teams back on November 18th, Cloud County defeated Seward County 73-68 after overcoming a 10-point halftime deficit.