ARKANSAS CITY – Building out a 15-point lead throughout the opening 20 minutes of play, the Cloud County Community College women's basketball team would lead by as many 19 to earn a 68-58 road win over Cowley Community College at the W.O. Scott Auditorium in Arkansas City on Saturday.
Picking up their first Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference East Division win in three tries, the T-Birds improved to 8-13 overall and 3-8 in the KJCCC while the Tigers drop their third straight game to fall to 15-6 overall and 5-6 in conference play.
With one of their best shooting performances of the season, Cloud County would finish the game by going 28-of-51 (54.9 percent) from the field despite connecting on just one-of-10 (10 percent) of their threes. Cowley would suffer offensively from a mix of an off-shooting night combined with the T-Bird defensive effort as the Tigers would shoot just 28.6 (18-for-63) from the field.
The rebounding battle would be a 42-35 advantage in favor of Cloud County as the T-Birds would also hold an 11-9 advantage in second-chance points to overcome a 21-19 advantage for Cowley in points off turnovers. Cowley would also hold a 24-18 advantage in points in the paint and 21-13 advantage in bench points.
A key to the T-Bird victory would be a career-high 33 points from sophomore Haven Hamilton as the Stockton, Kansas native would go 15-for-16 from the field and grab a team-best nine rebounds. Freshman Jacy Dalinghaus would join Hamilton in double-figures by scoring 17 points and grabbing nine rebounds of her own while adding four assists. Cowley would be led by a team-best 19 points from Shontrice Austin while Kalyne Daniels added 17 to account for 37 of Cowley's 58 total points.
What's next?
Cloud County will look to build off the momentum from Saturday night in their next game out which will take place on Wednesday against Allen Community College at 6 p.m. The game will the lone home game of the week for the T-Birds as CCCC is in the midst of playing three road games in a four-game span.
--cloudtbirds.com--