Tigers start fast, cruise to 83-58 home win

Playing its final regular season home game, the No. 6-ranked Cowley College men's basketball team built a commanding 47-19 halftime lead over Cloud County en route to an 83-58 victory.

The Tigers, winners of eight games in a row, improve their record to 16-1 at home. Cowley is now 26-3 overall and 21-2 in the conference, while Cloud County falls to 11-17 and 5-17 in the conference.

Having captured the conference title with a win on Saturday, Tiger head coach Donnie Jackson was happy his team could celebrate with the home fans following the win on Wednesday.

"It was fun to be able to send the sophomores off the right way and to be able to cut down the nets at home," Jackson said.

Cowley scored the first 19 points of Wednesday's game and held the T-Birds scoreless for nearly seven and a half minutes. Back-to-back three-pointers by freshman Xavier Alexander and a three-point play by Marcus Whitlock increased Cowley's lead to 40-13.

The Tigers went into halftime leading by 28 (47-19), holding Cloud County to 21.9 percent shooting.

"The guys were locked in and guarded well in the first half," Jackson said.

However, Cloud scored eight straight points to open the second half to pull within 47-27, but that would be as close as the T-Birds would get as Cloud County made just 1-of-24 three-point attempts, while the Tigers went 14-of-29 from long range.

Whitlock led Cowley with 18 points, while sophomore Shamarrie Hugie added 17 points and five rebounds. Sophomore point guard Marcus Zeigler also played well, finishing with 13 points, seven rebounds, and three assists, and CJ Majors came off the bench to score 11 points.

Elidjah Savane led Cloud County with a game-high 21 points, 17 of which came after halftime.

Cowley will wrap up the regular season by playing at Butler Community College (19-9) on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. The Grizzlies are tied for fourth in the Jayhawk Conference with a record of 14-8.

"We still have more work to do," Jackson said. "Butler will be a tough place to go play. We will need to have a great week of preparation."

Box score:

Cloud (58): Matthew Garber 0-7 0-0 0, Keyon-Garret Miller 0-7 0-0 0, Elidjah Savane 8-18 5-6 21, Syncere Burnette 3-9 3-3 9, Amare Johnson 4-9 1-3 9, Logan Sullivan 0-3 0-0 0, Kuel Akot 0-2 0-0 0, Roy Aviv 3-5 0-0 7, Fallou Koite 2-6 0-0 4, Dejuan Graise 2-7 0-0 4, Vuk Zarubica 2-3 0-0 4. Totals: 24-76 9-12 58.

Cowley (83): Shamarrie Hugie 6-11 2-2 17, Emarquis Jones 3-4 0-0 7, Marcus Zeigler 4-10 2-2 13, Dallas Whitney 2-3 0-2 5, Marcus Whitlock 6-12 3-3 18, Avante Nichols 2-2 0-0 4, Winston Allen 0-0 0-0 0, CJ Majors 3-5 4-4 11, Kyden Thompson 0-0 0-0 0, Teagan Charles 0-0 0-0 0, Austin Fortune 1-1 0-0 2, Xavier Alexander 2-4 0-0 6. Totals: 29-52 11-13 83.

Three-pointers: Cloud 1-24 (Aviv 1-2, Garber 0-5, Johnson 0-4, Graise 0-4, Burnette 0-3, Sullivan 0-2, Akot 0-2, Koite 0-1, Zarubica 0-1), Cowley 14-29 (Whitlock 3-8, Zeigler 3-7, Hugie 3-5, Alexander 2-4, Majors 1-2, Jones 1-2, Whitney 1-1). Rebounds: Cloud 34 (Garber 10), Cowley 35 (Zeigler 7). Assists: Cloud 9 (Burnette 3), Cowley 19 (Whitney 4). Turnovers: Cloud 16, Cowley 25. Total fouls: Cloud 14, Cowley 11. Fouled out: none. Technicals: Cloud.