Lady Tiger basketball has season come to an end in loss at Independence

The No. 9-seed Cowley College women's basketball team had its season come to an end with a 68-54 loss at eighth-seeded Independence Community College Saturday in the first round of the Region VI Playoffs.

Cowley fell behind 18-10 after one-quarter of play before pulling within 30-27 at the end of the first half. However, the Lady Tigers made just 3-of-13 shot attempts in the third quarter as the Lady Pirates outscored Cowley 21-10 to enter the fourth quarter with a 14-point (51-37) lead.

Cowley would close within 51-42 on a three-pointer by freshman Gracie Gilpin, but that would be as close as they would get in the 14-point road defeat. The Lady Tigers finished a disappointing season with a record of 4-10 on the road.

"We were wildly inconsistent all season," Cowley head coach Todd Clark said. "We just couldn't sustain things in the third quarter, and the lead was too big to make up ground."

The loss marks the first losing season in Coach Clark's 19 years at the helm as Cowley finishes the year with a record of 15-16.

"We had big wins against Barton and Hutchinson at home but managed very few road wins," Clark said. "I am extremely disappointed overall in our focus and work."

Baylee Fincher, a third-year sophomore, led Cowley with 19 points and finished with the most points in a career with 1,186 points. Gilpin finished a solid freshman campaign with 11 points.

Independence's D'Yanna Maxey came off the bench to lead all scorers with 24 points on 10-15 shooting from the floor. The Pirates improve to 16-15 overall and advance to play at top-seeded Dodge City (28-2) Tuesday at 5:30 p.m.

Cowley will say goodbye to eight sophomores as they will look to bounce back next season.

The box score can be found at: https://kjccc.org/sports/wbkb/2022-23/boxscores/20230304_dx4z.xml?view=boxscore