COLBY – After taking a 51-22 halftime lead, the Cloud County Community College women's basketball team would be forced to fend off a furious second-half rally to hang on for a 78-71 road win over Colby Community College inside the Colby Community Center in Colby on Saturday.
The victory allows Cloud County to move to 2-1 overall and 1-1 in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference while the Trojans fall to 1-2 overall and 0-2 in the KJCCC.
A quick start for the T-Birds would see Cloud County score six of the first eight points of the game while not allowing a Colby field goal for the first 3:44 of the contest. The T-Birds would take advantage of a size advantage in the paint, as Le'Yanna McGinnis would score six points on three-of-four shooting in the first quarter with the T-Birds taking a 24-7 lead after 10 minutes of action.
In the second quarter, Cloud County would continue their hot start by scoring six of the first eight points of the quarter to go up by a score of 30-9 with 6:55 remaining before halftime. The lead for the T-Birds would continue to grow as turnovers would be a problem for Colby in the first half, with Cloud County cruising their way to a 51-22 lead at intermission thanks in part to 20 Trojan turnovers.
Cloud County would maintain their massive lead throughout the opening minutes of the third quarter before seeing the tide turn when McGinnis would pick up her third foul just 38 seconds into the second half that would force the sophomore to go to the bench for the rest of the quarter. A Sydni Keys jumper with 5:05 remaining in the third would give the T-Birds their largest lead of the game at 59-26, but Colby would respond with a 16-1 run to end the period while holding Cloud County scoreless for a span of 4:56 to cut the lead down to 62-42 to enter the fourth.
After exchanging the first four points of the final quarter Cloud County would see the Trojans go on a 6-0 spurt to get with 14 at 64-50, but a Derin Akdeniz triple would push the lead back out to 17 with 7:15 left in the contest. Just over three minutes later, Colby would manage to get within 10 at 67-57 as another scoring drought would find its way to the T-Birds to allow the Trojans to make things interesting down the stretch.
Alyssa Castilleja would connect on a layup and foul and convert the three-point play to put the T-Birds up 70-57 with 2:45 remaining, but Colby would have another answer by scoring the next nine points to pull within four with 51 seconds left. Free throw shooting would become a necessity for Cloud County to put the game away as the T-Birds would score their final eight points of the game from the charity stripe to seal their first conference win of the year.
Connecting on 58.3 percent (21-of-36) of their shots in the first half, Cloud County would struggle in the second half to finish the game 28-of-65 (43.1 percent) from the field but would hit on 19-of-26 free throw attempts including a perfect eight-of-eight in the final 25 seconds of the game. The T-Birds would force 27 Colby turnovers which led to 23 points for the T-Birds to overcome a 43-34 rebounding deficit.
Four of Cloud County's five starters would reach double-figures, led by a team-best 16 points from Keys. McGinnis would add 14 points and four rebounds despite not scoring in the second half while Akdeniz and Castilleja each had 11. Colby would have four of their own in double-figures including a game-high 22 points from Marveen Ross off the bench.
--cloudtbirds.com--