Tigers bow out with a 71-63 loss at Cloud County

The No 9-seed Cowley College men's basketball team could not overcome a cold-shooting second half in a 71-63 loss at eighth-seeded Cloud County Community College Saturday in the first round of the Region VI Playoffs held in Concordia, KS.

Cowley finishes with 16 wins for the second straight season as they end the year with a record of 16-15. "It's never easy when the season ends, but I am proud of this team," Cowley head coach Donnie Jackson said. "We faced a lot of adversity this year. The one thing we never did was quit."

On Saturday, Cowley got a long jumper from sophomore Mekhi Cameron at the halftime buzzer to lead 38-35. After scoring the first basket of the second half, Cowley would go nearly six minutes without scoring as the T-Birds used an 18-0 run to lead 53-40.

Cowley would close within 66-62 with 2:15 left to play following back-to-back three-pointers by freshman Damare Smith and a pair of free-throws by sophomore Xavier Valley. The Tigers had a chance to get even closer but turned the ball over and missed a shot inside on its next two possessions and the T-Birds went 5-of-6 from the foul line to hold on for the win.

"We gave ourselves a chance to get back in it at the end when Damare hit back-to-back 3's to cut it to six and we had chances to cut it down more we just couldn't finish the play," Jackson said.

Cowley shot just 27 percent in the second half.

Cloud's Moaz Mohamed came off the bench to go 7-of-9 from three-point range and led all scorers with 21 points.

"Credit to Cloud, they made a couple of adjustments that hurt us," Jackson said. "It also didn't help that they had a kid hit seven threes off the bench. Credit to him for stepping up."

Cameron led Cowley with 20 points and finishes his career as the 15^th leading scorer in the program's history with 971 points. Fellow sophomore Xavier Washington added 14 points and eight rebounds, while freshman Jeff Nwankwo chipped in 13 points and six boards.

Cloud (16-15) advances to play at top-seeded Dodge City Tuesday at 7:30 p.m., while Cowley will set its sights toward next season.

"I appreciate this sophomore class, they will be missed," Jackson said. "I saw a lot of growth in these young men. We will be hitting the recruiting trail hard to get better."

The box score can be found at: https://kjccc.org/sports/mbkb/2022-23/boxscores/20230303_2pf1.xml?view=boxscore