Late Surge, Defense Allow Cloud County Women to Pull Away from Garden City

Trailing by three points heading into halftime, the Cloud County Community College women's basketball team would lock down visiting Garden City Community College in the second half to outscore the Broncbusters 33-19 in the second half to earn a 55-44 home win inside Arley Bryant Gymnasium on Saturday, January 7th.

Picking up their 12th consecutive regular-season victory over Garden City, Cloud County improves to 11-5 overall with the win and moves to 6-4 in Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference play. Garden City drops their second consecutive game after returning from the holiday break to fall to 7-9 overall and 3-7 in the KJCCC.

Limited to just two points in the opening four minutes of play, the T-Birds would see Garden City jump out to an 8-2 lead before getting a made three from sophomore Lilly Smith to cut the GCCC lead in half at 8-5 with 5:57 left in the opening quarter. The triple from Smith would end up sparking a 7-0 CCCC run to put Cloud County up 9-8 before seeing Garden City respond with an 8-0 run that would put the T-Birds back in a 16-9 deficit with 1:29 left in the period. Ending the run by connecting on a pair of Maimouna Sissoko free throws, Cloud County would manage to score the four points of the first quarter to trail 16-13 heading into the second.

Points would prove to be at a premium throughout the second quarter with neither team getting on the board over the first two-plus minutes of the quarter with Garden City's Dayshawna Carter eventually breaking the drought with a pair of free throws. Answering the free throws with a made Sarah Lawless triple, Cloud County would put together a 7-0 spurt to take a 20-18 lead before giving up two quick buckets to GCCC to put things at a 22-20 Broncbuster lead midway through the quarter. The final 5:20 of the first half would see just four total points scored as the T-Birds would get an Alize Ruiz free throw while seeing Garden City get a made three from Carter to make it a 25-22 Broncbuster lead at the half.

Both teams would come out of the intermission break once again struggling to find points as it would take over three minutes of game action to start the second half before seeing any points which would come in the form of a pair of free throws from Ruiz to bring Cloud County within a point at 25-24. Ruiz would then score on a layup on the ensuing CCCC possession to allow the T-Birds to reclaim the lead as part of a 6-0 run that would be capped off by a Jessi Brummett layup.

Following a Garden City timeout at the 5:25 mark of the third quarter, the Broncbusters would manage to score six-straight points as the back-and-forth trading of the lead would continue after Cloud County would get made layups from both Ruiz and Sissoko. A second made layup from Sissoko would begin to see the T-Birds expand on their lead as Cloud County would score eight of the final 10 points in the third quarter to hold a 36-33 lead after 30 minutes of action.

A made basket by Garden City would open the scoring in the fourth quarter before seeing Cloud County respond with a layup of their own to keep things at a three-point margin with just over eight minutes remaining. Trading a made Broncbuster shot with a Ruiz free throw, GCCC would pull within one on a made free throw as the margin would be just a single point at 41-40 with just over four minutes left. Following 1:20 of scoreless action, a Ruiz layup would kick off a 10-0 Cloud County run while holding Garden City scoreless over a span of 4:28 that would essentially put the game out of reach with the T-Birds up 51-40 with 33 seconds left. Garden City would manage to four points in the final seconds by way of the free throw line but wind up giving up four made free throws to CCCC as the 11-point margin would wind up being the final margin of victory for Cloud County.

The 55 total points for the T-Birds would be just the second time this season that Cloud County was held under 60 points after shooting 18-of-54 (33.3 percent) from the floor and two-of-23 (8.7 percent) from beyond the arc. Making up for the poor shooting would be an 18-for-25 (85 percent) performance from the charity stripe as the T-Birds would also outrebound Garden City 42-33 and turn 17 Broncbuster turnovers into 16 points. GCCC would not fare much better from the field, hitting just 27.5 percent (14-of-51) of their shots and going one-of-7 (14.3 percent) from three.

Three of Cloud County's five starters would work their way into double figures on the day with Sissoko having a 12-point, 15-rebound performance to lead CCCC. The T-Birds would also get 12 points from Te Araroa Sopoaga and a team-best 15 points from Ruiz with four other players combining for the remaining 16 points. Garden City would see 24 of their 44 total points scored by Carter as just four Broncbusters would find the scoring column in the contest.

What's Next?
Cloud County is back on the road for a second-consecutive Wednesday road contest when they head to Arkansas City, Kansas to take on Cowley at 5:30 PM on January 11th. The Tigers built a 14-point first-quarter deficit over Butler before eventually falling by a final score of 72-62 at home to move to 8-8 overall and 3-7 in KJCCC play.