CONCORDIA – Celebrating sophomore day and six sophomores playing their final game inside of Arley Bryant Gymnasium, the Cloud County Community College women's basketball team would be unable to complete a comeback in a 71-60 defeat to Independence Community College on Saturday.
With one game remaining in the regular-season, Cloud County is now 9-20 overall and 4-15 in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference while the Pirates improved to 15-10 and 12-6 in Jayhawk Conference play.
The opening minutes would be all Independence as the Pirates would jump out to an 11-1 lead after four minutes of action while scoring the first seven points of the game and holding the T-Birds to just a single free-throw. Back-to-back triples from freshman Alyssa Castilleja would look to spark CCCC on the offensive end as the second trey would cut a 15-4 deficit down to 15-7 and would be followed up by a LaKya Leslie layup on the ensuing possession to cut the deficit to six. The 5-0 spurt would be part of a larger 10-0 run by the T-Birds to end the quarter and get back with one at 15-14 at the end of the first quarter.
An 8-2 run by Independence to start the second quarter would allow the Pirates to extend their lead back out to seven at 23-16 as Cloud County would call a timeout after trading the next two buckets with ICC to try and regroup with 4:55 left in the first half. Haven Hamilton would then go on to score the next four points for the T-Birds while seeing Independence split the points with a three-point play to keep things a two-possession ball-game as CCCC would see Pirates close the half out by scoring eight of the final 11 points to put things at 36-25 heading into intermission.
Cloud County would do their best to try and keep things manageable in the third-quarter, but see the Pirates go up by a score of 47-32 midway through the third as both offenses would start to find their rhythm. The lead for Independence would eventually grow to a game-high 19 at 53-34 with 2:36 remaining in the quarter as Cloud County would respond by scoring 10 of the final 13 points of the quarter including an eight-point spark from freshman Jacy Dalinghaus.
Nine of the first 11 points of the fourth would be scored by Independence as the Pirates would once again appear to be on the verge of running away with things, but Cloud County would still have some fight left in them as the T-Birds would go on a 14-2 run over the span of 3:02 to get back within seven at 67-60 with 1:22 remaining. Three consecutive free throws coupled with an empty offensive possession however would be the final dagger in a T-Bird comeback as the Pirates would hang on and score the final four points of the game to finish the game out.
Both teams would finish the game shooting 38.2 percent from the field as Cloud County would go 21-of-55 while Independence shot 26-of-68. Free throw shooting would not be particularly solid by either team as the two teams combined go just 29-for-50 from the charity stripe, but the Pirates would use a 28-16 advantage in points off turnovers and 48-39 advantage on the glass to make up for the performance.
Double-doubles from Hamilton (14 points, 10 rebounds) and Leslie (12 points, 12 rebounds) would be the performance for CCCC as Dalinghaus (12 points) and Castilleja (11 points) would also reach double-figures. Hamilton would add two blocks and one steal while Castilleja assisted on three baskets and added two steals of her own.
What's next?
The 2019-20 regular-season comes to a close on Wednesday as the T-Birds will travel to Chanute to take on Neosho Community College at 5:30 p.m. The Panthers were 83-69 road losers at Coffeyville Saturday afternoon.