Cloud County Men's Basketball Scores Non-Conference Road Win at Northeast Community College

Cloud County's Joe Kearney Played a Game-High 38 Minutes on Saturday, Scoring Eight Points and Grabbing Nine Rebounds in a Road Win Over Northeast
Cloud County's Joe Kearney Played a Game-High 38 Minutes on Saturday, Scoring Eight Points and Grabbing Nine Rebounds in a Road Win Over Northeast

Building a double-digit lead six minutes into the game, the Cloud County Community College men's basketball team would withstand a late rally from a pesky Northeast Community College squad to earn a 74-68 road victory inside the Cox Activities Center in Norfolk, Nebraska on Saturday, November 12th.

Moving over .500 for the first time this season, Cloud County improves to 3-2 overall with a third-straight victory while the Hawks drop to 1-2 overall.

Not wasting any time to get out to an early lead, the T-Birds would hit a pair of open threes with Corey Sawyer Jr. and Joe Kearney getting the scoring going and putting CCCC up 6-0 as part of a 9-2 run in the opening 4:17 of the game. Adding to their lead with each of the next two baskets to make it a double-digit contest, Cloud County would be firing on all cylinders midway through the first half as the lead would grow to 15 at 20-5 on a Kyle McElroy layup with 9:40 left before halftime. Over the next five minutes of action, Northeast would manage to cut the double-digit deficit down to five by going on a 10-0 run and get back within two possessions as a CCCC scoring drought would finally be broken with a made jump shot from Andre Gray II and be followed by a Malang Athian layup to get the lead back to nine at 24-15. Points would then come in bunches for the final four minutes of play in the first half as the Hawks would cut the T-Bird lead down to five on two different occasions and eventually down to four with 1:30 left as Cloud County would see things settle at a 31-26 advantage for CCCC heading into halftime.

The Northeast rally that ended the first half would carry over into the second half as the Hawks would manage to score the first three points of the second period to get within two just 1:22 into the half before seeing Cloud County respond by going on an 8-2 run to go back up by an eight-point margin. An aggressive style of play on the offensive end for Northeast would see the T-Birds start to have fouls mounting up early in the second half which allowed the Hawks to get into the bonus with nearly 12 minutes left in the game. Despite the foul issues, the T-Birds would withstand the push from Northeast to keep their lead at an eight-point advantage.

The Cloud County lead would grow back to double-digits following a Justin Graham layup with 8:20 remaining in the game to force a Northeast timeout as the T-Birds would be in a position to try and put the game out of reach heading into the final stretch of the second half. Out of the timeout, CCCC would add to their lead with a three by Gray II before matching their largest lead of the game by going up 15 at 59-44 with 6:21 remaining. A 6-2 spurt by the Hawks would get Northeast on the cusp of cutting the deficit back down to single digits as Cloud County would manage to keep their lead from dropping any further. With free throw shooting becoming a factor heading into crunch time, CCCC would go nine-for-12 at the charity stripe in the final 3:34 of action to hold back a furious rally by Northeast that would see a 14-point lead with 2:12 left be cut all the way to four as the T-Birds would escape with the six-point win.

Efficiency on offense in both halves would see Cloud County finish the game with a 46.3 percent (25-of-54) effort from the field while going 20-for-29 (69.0 percent) from the free throw line with 24 of their free throw attempts coming in the second half. Both teams would manage to bring in 31 total rebounds, but a 17-13 advantage in points off turnovers would prove to be big for the T-Birds to offset a 21-10 deficit in second-chance points.

Leading all scorers in the game would be Sawyer Jr. who would finish with 22 points and four rebounds while Gray II would score 15 points off the bench and record two of CCCC's six blocks. Two other T-Birds would just miss out on double-double performances with Graham (nine points, eight rebounds) and Kearney (eight points, nine rebounds) both having big performances in a game that saw them each play over 30 minutes. Emaniel Alexandre would lead Northeast with 18 points and seven rebounds as three Hawks would finish in double-figures and account for 45 of their 68 total points.

What's Next?
Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference play is next in store for Cloud County as the T-Birds will host Northwest Kansas Technical College in their conference opener at 8 PM on Wednesday, November 16th. The Mavericks improved to 4-1 overall on Saturday afternoon with an 83-73 home win over McCook Community College as NWKT has won their last four games following an 89-83 home loss to Northeastern Junior College in their season opener on November 1st. In the four wins for Northwest Tech, the Mavs have won by an average of 13 points per contest and have averaged 82 points per game over the opening two weeks of play.