Sunflower State News

Holding just a seven-point halftime lead, the Cloud County Community College women's basketball team would outscore visiting Colby Community College 43-23 in the second half to earn a 76-49 home win inside Arley Bryant Gymnasium on Saturday, January 14th.

Picking up their ninth home win of the year, Cloud County improved to 12-6 overall and 7-5 in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College while handing the Trojans their 16th consecutive defeat to drop to 1-16 overall and 0-12 in the KJCCC.

Turning to freshman Maimouna Sissoko in the opening minutes of the game, the T-Birds would score five of the first six points with Sissoko scoring all five points before a Tereia Steward layup off a Kayla Horton steal to put CCCC up 7-1 with 4:57 left in the first quarter. Following the layup by Steward, Colby would respond by scoring seven of the next nine points with four of the seven coming from the charity stripe to get within a single point at 7-6 and again at 9-8. Things would eventually become tied at 10-10 with 2:04 left in the opening quarter before the Trojans would take their first lead of the game on a steal and layup as Colby would score 12 of the final 17 points of the first period to hold a 13-12 lead heading to the second.

Seeking their first field goal since the 3:14 mark of the first quarter, Cloud County would break a five-minute streak as Steward would hit an open triple off a Jessi Brummett pass that would put the T-Birds back on top by a 15-13 score. Colby would tie things back up just over a minute later on a layup before seeing Cloud County get layups from both Alize Ruiz and Maimouna Sissoko to start an 11-3 run to go up 26-18 at the mid-way point of the second quarter. The run for the T-Birds would continue as seven of the next nine points would also be scored by Cloud County to take their largest lead of the first half at 33-20 with 3:14 left before halftime as Colby would once again find a way to close out the quarter on a high note by scoring the final six points to cut the deficit down to seven at 33-26.

Wasting little time to begin the second half, Cloud County would create a Colby turnover that would lead to a Sissoko fast-break layup as the T-Birds would score the first 10 points of the third quarter to go back up by double-digits and take a 43-26 lead. A four-plus minute scoring drought to begin the second half would come to an end for the Trojans at the 5:59 mark of the quarter on a made free throw by Jayla Sample, but it would continue to be the Cloud County offense that would shine with seven of the next nine points to push their lead over the 20-point mark. Working with a comfortable lead, the T-Birds would continue to have momentum on the offensive end by offsetting made Colby field goals with made threes on their end of the court and eventually carry a 56-36 lead into the fourth.

Pushing their lead to 25 over the course of the first three minutes of the fourth quarter, Cloud County would ensure that no chance of a comeback would be possible by Colby as both the defensive and offensive sides of the ball would continue to work efficiently. For the third-consecutive quarter, Cloud County would manage to put up over 20 points in the quarter while holding Colby to just 13 as the lead would reach as high as 29 in the final minute before finally settling at a 27-point margin of victory.

Following a three-for-16 (18.75 percent) field goal percentage in the first quarter, Cloud County would rebound to finish the game 29-of-66 (43.9 percent) from the floor while hitting on seven-of-22 (31.8 percent) of their three-point attempts. Free throw shooting would also look strong for the T-Birds with an 11-of-14 (78.6 percent) performance that would work well with a 41-33 advantage in rebounds and an 18-6 advantage in points off turnovers.

Leading all scorers in the contest would be a game-high 19 points from Alize Ruiz to go along with 13 rebounds for her ninth double-double of the year as all 10 players that played for Cloud County would score. The T-Birds would also get 13 points each from Horton, Sissoko, and Steward with Sissoko adding six rebounds and two steals. Colby would be led by 18 points each from Sample and Peyton Pinkney as no other player would have more than six for the Trojans.

What's Next?
Cloud County will make the long trek west to Goodland, Kansas on Wednesday, January 18th for a 5:30 PM Mountain Time tip-off with Northwest Kansas Technical College. The Mavericks were in Coffeyville, Kansas this weekend and dropped a 59-47 road game to the Red Ravens to fall to 5-11 overall and 1-11 in conference play. In this season's earlier meeting in Concordia, Cloud County took a 77-35 victory over the Mavericks in the conference opening game for both squads. 

Original source can be found here.