No. 5 ranked Cowley County had to turn back repeated second half challenges for a 4-2 Jayhawk Conference win over Kansas City Kansas Community College in Arkansas City Wednesday.

The league-leading Tigers improved to 5-1 in conference play and 8-1 overall while KCKCC fell to 2-3-1 overall and 1-3-1 in conference play. The Blue Devils are back in action Saturday against Garden City in a neutral site contest at the Stryker soccer complex in Wichita. Kickoff is at 3 p.m.

Cowley made the most of corner kicks to hold off the Blue Devils. Three of the Tigers' four goals were on corner kicks set up by Sota Nakazono, who had assists on all four goals. Cowley led just 1-0 at halftime, scoring on a goal by Thiago Apolinario 21:13 into the game. Twice the Tigers built 2-goal leads but each time KCKCC battled back.

After Vitor Hugo Lopes put Cowley up 2-0 four minutes into the second half, KCKCC freshman Aaron Jackson cut the lead in half with a long range shot to the left side of the goal at 55:03. Taking advantage of KCKCC being a player down, Lopes reopened the lead to 3-1 with his second goal at 75:25. Despite being a man short, freshman Noah Conover trimmed the lead to 3-2 with a long-range blast to the right side of the goal with 83:12 gone only to have Cowley score a clinching goal with under three minutes left.

Sophomore goalkeeper Axel Tonietto had six saves for the Blue Devils. Kamy Ndione had five for Cowley. The Tigers had 10 shots on goal while the Blue Devils had eight.