Cloud County rallies late to defeat Lady Tigers 71-68

The Cowley College women's basketball team had its three-game winning streak snapped with a 71-68 loss at Cloud County Saturday in Concordia, KS. The T-Birds out-scored Cowley 13-4 over the final 3:51 to overcome a late six-point deficit.

Cowley is now 10-7 overall and 4-7 in the Jayhawk Conference. Cloud County, winners of four games in a row, improves to 10-5 overall and 6-4 in the conference.

Trailing 17-12 after one-quarter of play, Cowley erupted for a 25-point second quarter, giving them a 37-34 halftime lead. Lady Tiger freshman Jaiden Smith, who finished with a career-high 24 points on 6-of-11 shooting from three-point range, hit four three-pointers and scored 14 points in the second quarter.

The teams traded baskets in the third quarter, with Cowley heading to the fourth quarter with a 53-51 advantage.

A pair of free throws by sophomore Ndack Mbengue with 3:51 remaining increased Cowley's lead to 64-58. Cloud County fought back and went in front 68-66 following a layup by the T-Birds' Darcy Lierz with 40 seconds left.

Trailing 69-66, Smith was fouled with three seconds left and made both free throws to pull Cowley within one. The Lady Tigers then fouled Josephine Igherighe who pushed the T-Birds' lead back to three at 71-68 with 1.8 seconds remaining as the Tigers used their final timeout to advance the ball into the frontcourt. Needing a three-pointer to force overtime, Cloud forced a contested three from Anna Przyszlak that was off the mark as time expired.

"Cloud finished the game, and we did not," Cowley head coach Todd Clark said.

Reigning KJCCC and NJCAA Division I Player of the Week Mimouna Sissoko finished with 10 points and 21 rebounds, while Igherighe scored a team-high 20 points on six-of-10 shooting with a perfect eight-of-eight effort from the free throw line.

Along with Smith's 24 points, she added six steals and five rebounds. Mbengue came off the bench to record a double-double with 15 points and 11 rebounds. Hattie Pyle and Przyszlak combined for 24 points but made only 6-of-33 shots from the floor.

Cowley will have some time off before hosting No. 8-ranked Butler Community College in a Sunday afternoon matchup at 1 p.m. The Lady Grizzlies are 14-2 overall and in third place in the conference with a record of 8-2.

The box score can be found at https://www.cowleytigers.com/sports/wbkb/2023-24/boxscores/20240113_rsls.xml?view=boxscore.