Lady Tiger basketball team opens with three straight home wins

With the start of conference play less than two weeks away, the Cowley College women's basketball team scheduled a few home games to help ease them into the 2023 season. The Lady Tigers showed improvement in all three victories.

Cowley opened with a 57-46 win over the Tabor College JV on Wednesday. The Lady Tigers trailed 26-24 at the end of the first half before out-scoring the Bluejays 33-20 over the final 20 minutes of play.

Sophomores Anna Przyszlak (17 points) and Ndack Mbengue (12 points, eight rebounds) led the way for the Lady Tigers. Freshmen Hattie Pyle (13 points, nine rebounds) and Jaiden Smith (11 points) also played well as the four-some combined for 53 of the team's 57 points.

Kaylee Kaufman led Tabor with 14 points in the defeat.

Cowley returned to the confines of W.S. Scott Auditorium to take on the Kansas Wesleyan University JV on Friday and was never challenged in the 77-38 win.

The Lady Tigers led 21-5 after the first quarter of play and out-scored the Lady Coyotes in all four quarters as they held Kansas Wesleyan to 26.7 percent shooting.

Smith led Cowley with 13 points, while Przyszlak added a double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds. Freshman Josephine Vourliotis gave the team a spark off the bench, finishing with 10 points and five rebounds in only nine minutes of action.

Emma Gertken was the lone Kansas Wesleyan player to score in double figures as she finished with 11 points.

Cowley would cap the weekend with a resounding 123-24 win over Haskell Indian Nation on Saturday. The 99-point win was the largest margin of victory in school history, surpassing a 114-18 win over Haskell on February 6, 1978.

The Lady Tigers led 39-2 after one-quarter of play and 70-7 at the end of the first half.

Cowley out-shot Haskell 51.2 percent to 17.6 percent from the floor while going 15-of-37 from three-point range. The Lady Tigers had seven players score in double figures and were led by freshman Aiyanna Big Man's 21 points on 8-of-12 shooting. Przyszlak (13 points, 12 rebounds) and Mbengue (13 points, 10 rebounds) had double-doubles, while Vourliotis and Zuzanna Komar added 16 points apiece.

Jayla Flient went 5-of-9 and led Haskell with 10 points. The rest of the squad combined to make only 4-of-42 attempts from the floor.

Cowley will attempt to make it four wins in a row to start the season when they host the Bethany College JV on Monday night at 5:30.

"We have some good preparation to prepare us for a brutal schedule," Cowley head coach Todd Clark said. "The whole idea is to improve every day and every game. I feel like we are doing that."